Antaraa Anandan is a remarkable second-generation Indian high school student living in Illinois, USA. We were honoured when she contacted us to ask if she could use her #lettersforher campaign in partnership with us. Prompted by the barrage of stories of gender-based violence she felt she could no longer stand by and ignore the situation and wanted to do something to demand change for women in India. and show solidarity to our female survivors.
#Lettersforher invited women and girls to write their own letters of support to share with our beneficiaries and let them know that others were thinking of them. We received literally hundreds of handwritten cards with heartfelt messages filed with love and respect for the situations our women and girls had survived.
These cards were distributed to women from across our projects at our events to celebrate International Women's Day on 8 March. As you can see from the video above, our staff and beneficiaries from our women's shelter, farm, sex worker projects, rehabilitation center, slum projects, hospital, adoption center were thrilled to receive the cards.
We are truly grateful to Antaraa for taking the initiative to ask her friends, family and community groups to think about our beneficiaries and send them these special words which meant so much. The cards that are left over will be shared with women and girls when they first approach us for help and will go some way to help them over the traumas that have brought them to our doorstep.
Watch the video below to hear more from Antaraa.
It's not too late, you can also show your solidarity to our women through a donation to our projects.