{"id":5723,"date":"2015-01-18T12:08:00","date_gmt":"2015-01-18T12:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/2015\/01\/giraffe-heroes-india-sunitha-krishnan\/"},"modified":"2018-06-13T18:05:12","modified_gmt":"2018-06-13T12:35:12","slug":"giraffe-heroes-india-sunitha-krishnan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/giraffe-heroes-india-sunitha-krishnan\/","title":{"rendered":"Giraffe Heroes India – Sunitha Krishnan"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\nUnder the guidance of Sh. Vijay Saluja, Giraffe Heroes India\u2019s new Director<\/b>, Giraffe Heroes India (GH\/India) aims to bring Giraffe vision, strategies and tools for change to the 1.3 billion people on the Indian subcontinent \u2013 making it potentially by far the largest Giraffe global affiliate launched to date.<\/p>\n
\n<\/div>\n

\nGH\/India will tell the inspiring stories of the country\u2019s heroes, motivating others to become heroic too. GH\/India will also offer practical tools citizen activists need to succeed, as well as Giraffe civic engagement programs in schools, helping young people build lives as courageous and compassionate citizens serving a vibrant India.
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\nDwarka Parichay being media partner for the Giraffe Heroes India program, starting a series of inspiring stories of heroes in India.<\/b> This will definitely motivate others and more Giraffe Heroes will join the GH\/India brigade.
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\nCheck for criteria & nomination form for a Giraffe Hero India.<\/b>
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\n******************************************************<\/p>\n

\nKrishnan, Sunitha<\/b><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\nAs a teenager, Sunitha Krishnan was gang-raped by eight men. Instead of following custom, saying nothing and killing herself, Krishnan came up fighting. \u201cWhat I remember today isn\u2019t the rape,\u201d Krishnan says. \u201cI remember my anger.\u201d She has used that anger well in what has become her life work: saving other victims of sexual predators.<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Sunitha Krishnan<\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
\nIn 1996 Krishnan co-founded the non-profit organization Prajwala (eternal flame) to rescue women and children caught in the web of sex trafficking in Hyderabad, the main city of the central Indian state Andhra Pradesh.<\/div>\n
\n
\nKrishnan describes sex trafficking as \u201cthe worst form of human rights violation\u201d and as \u201ca modern-day slavery.\u201d Besides operating three shelters for abused children and former victims of commercial sexual exploitation, her organization also finances the education of 5,000 children infected with HIV\/AIDS in Hyderabad, and it operates 17 centers for the thousands of children of prostitutes to ensure that they will not become second-generation sex victims.<\/p>\n

Her radical views estranged Krishnan from her family and her radical work has put her life in danger again and again. She has been beaten more than 40 times\u2014she lost her hearing in one ear as a result\u2014by thugs who would like to see sex trafficking continue unchallenged. \u201cI have saved 3,200 girls,\u201d Krishnan said in describing her work. \u201cI have rescued children as young as 3 years, and I have rescued women as old as 40.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prajwala not only rescues them, it assists them in finding shelter and learning a trade, becoming welders, masons, carpenters, security guards, cab drivers. \u201cYou may ask, why not as computer technicians?\u201d Krishnan asked. \u201cWe saw that these girls had immense courage, they had no fear left. They could compete in a male-dominated world. That\u2019s why each of them is excelling in her chosen field. These girls are gaining confidence, they\u2019re restoring their dignity, they\u2019re building hope in their own lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prajwala has never been a generously funded organization, and there have been times when Krishnan had to sell her own belongings to pay staff salaries. The organization has bought a 10-acre plot of land on the outskirts of Hyderabad and is fund-raising to build a permanent shelter large enough to accommodate all the survivors Prajwala helps.<\/p>\n

The greatest challenge Krishnan faces in this work, she says, is the indifference of individuals who may wish to help social misfits in general terms\u2014but don\u2019t want those misfits in their homes or going to school with their own children. \u201cNo human being deserves to go through what these children have gone through,\u201d she says. \u201cThey need our compassion. They need our empathy. They need our acceptance.\u201d<\/p>\n

And they need Sunitha Krishnan, a champion for their futures.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Under the guidance of Sh. Vijay Saluja, Giraffe Heroes India\u2019s new Director, Giraffe Heroes India (GH\/India) aims to bring Giraffe vision, strategies and tools for change to the 1.3 billion people on the Indian subcontinent \u2013 making it potentially by far the largest Giraffe global affiliate launched to date. GH\/India will tell the inspiring stories of the country\u2019s heroes, motivating others to become heroic too. GH\/India will also offer practical tools citizen activists need to succeed, as well as Giraffe civic engagement programs in schools, helping young people build lives as courageous and compassionate citizens serving a vibrant India. Dwarka Parichay being media <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29901,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1882,1879,16],"class_list":["post-5723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-update","tag-giraffe-heroes","tag-update","tag-vijay-k-saluja","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5723"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51322,"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5723\/revisions\/51322"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}