When a woman is tricked, lured, bought in exchange of money or goods, or coerced to leave her homeland to work as a commercial sex worker under exploitative conditions, she is a "trafficked woman."
About Us
Kranti's Mission
Kranti is a women's rights NGO that provides a healing home, comprehensive education and personalized opportunities to India’s socially disadvantaged young women in order to empower and equip them with the knowledge, skills, and confidence necessary to build fulfilling futures and become agents of positive change in the world.
Kranti's Vision
We envision an India
- Where the basic human rights of every woman are recognized and striven for.
- Where these human rights guarantee her access to a comprehensive education.
- Where her education grants her the agency and independence to control her own life.
- Where this agency enables her to make a significant intellectual contribution to the world.
- Where society’s value of her contribution instigates an enduring confidence and strength.
- Where this collective strength of India’s women ignites a generational empowerment, and provides every woman the opportunity to live up to her full potential intellectually, socially, spiritually, and physically.
Kranti's Objectives
- Human Rights
- Comprehensive Education
- Agency & Independence
- Intellectual Contribution Strength
- Fulfilled Potential
FAQ
Most anti-trafficking organisations fall short. In the name of rehabilitation, many organisations either coerce trafficked women into marriages or teach them fixed vocational skills like sewing that barely afford them a subsistence income. This is not empowering in any way, nor does it affect the root cause of trafficking: women being valued for their bodies rather than their intellects and capabilities. Although a large number of girls are rescued and "rehabilitated" by these organisations, their ineffectiveness cause many of the girls to run away - and a third of them are re-trafficked ("Trafficking in women and children in India", P. M. Nair, Sankar Sen, National Human Rights Commission). The rest are left to fend for themselves, just as dis-empowered as before.
Kranti, which means 'revolution' in Hindi, is revolutionizing the rehabilitation strategy for trafficked women. Our innovation is to put these girls' life choices back in their own hands. We allow them to choose their own career goals and give them access to resources to achieve these goals. Our resident counselor helps them overcome post-traumatic stress disorder, and we have 24 hour medical services on call. In sum, our innovation is to provide holistic services to the girls for their body, mind, spirit and career so that they come out of Kranti as confident women who contribute to the economy and development of the country. Looking at their successes, society will learn to value women for their capabilities and intellect and not just their bodies.
We believe we are pioneers of a disruptive innovation in the sphere of anti-trafficking activities, because we are changing the paradigm of the metrics of the measurement of success of anti-trafficking NGOs from the number of girls "rehabilitated" to the quality of life attained by these girls.
Our most significant metric of success is that we have eliminated the statistic of more than a third of rescued trafficked women being re-trafficked within the first year. 0% of Kranti’s beneficiaries are re-trafficked.
The individual progress of each girl is tangibly measured through their academic grades as well as quarterly evaluation of their extra-curricular activities by their tutors. The girls have been maintaining scores in the range of 65%-85%. The resident counsellor conducts quarterly assessments of the girls' mental stability to monitor how well they are coping with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. All of them have progressed from Level 4 to Level 2 in the intensity of PTSD. For the first 4 months of the girls’ residency with Kranti, they undergo fortnightly physical health check-ups by a general physician in a clinic to assess whether they have developed any diseases and how they are recovering from past diseases. All the girls are currently certified to be healthy, free of any form of sexually transmitted diseases or other diseases.
Since its inception 10 months ago, Kranti’s volunteer base has grown from 5 to 30. This growing interest of the people of Mumbai shows the increasing awareness amongst people about Kranti, sensitivity towards the issue, appreciation and recognition of Kranti’s successful rehabilitation strategy and desire to partake in this success through volunteership.
In India, government agencies and the legal system often play a role in perpetuating trafficking and ineffective rehabilitation programs. Consequently, the only government agencies we are currently affiliated with are education-related organizations that help ensure the Revolutionaries will receive formal education credentials despite their lack of documentation or immigrant status.
Kranti also partners with several companies, including architecture firms who provided design resources and will donate materials for the construction of Kranti's sustainable, compressed-earth brick home. In addition, we have several corporate sponsors, including Indian hospitality service providers and American engineering firms. Lastly, civil society involvement is at Kranti's core: we strive to engage as many communities as possible to further our mission of attacking gender inequality. Thus far, we have forged partnerships with academic institutions (providing internships for Indian Masters of Social Work students), activist groups, community and neighborhood programs, non-profits in the field, and several sports/social clubs. These partnerships and teammates will help Kranti build a solid support system to achieve their goals.
Our Programs
Our primary concern is ensuring that the Revolutionaries are enrolled in a formal education program through India's National Institute of Open Schooling [http://www.nios.ac.in] and are learning to read, write, and analyze. In addition, every day at Kranti leads to numerous types of informal education - reading National Geographic , browsing YouTube, or jamming on the guitar/drums - as we strive to keep up with the Revolutionaries' desire to learn and explore.
For the Revolutionaries' formal studies, we employ personal tutors for the following subjects:
- Reading/Writing
- Languages (Hindi, English, Bengali, Urdu, Marathi)
- Mathematics
- History
- Science
- Geography
- Social Sciences
Some of the things the Revolutionaries are currently learning:
- Dance
- Painting
- Drawing & Mehendi
- Karate
- Musical Instruments
- Photography
Opportunities we hope to offer in the future:
- Advanced Photography and Videography
- Languages (Spanish, Mandarin, Russian - anything!)
- Playwriting & Acting
- Rock & Mountain Climbing
- Other Martial Arts & Self-Defense
- Creative Writing & Poetry Workshops