Gig Preview: Fundraiser For Sewing New Futures
3 September 2014
‘Sewing New Futures’ is a social enterprise founded by the dedicated Kristin Braddock. It targets the Perna community of young girls and women in Najafgarh who belong to a scheduled caste and are forced into intergenerational prostitution at an early age.
Along with the good people at Hauz Khas Social in Delhi, Kristin is hosting a fundraiser tomorrow (with some exciting music) to help her enterprise raise money needed to get things off the ground. All details are available here.
Prostitution in these parts of the country, comes about because of one basic need – to survive. To live, eat or have a roof over ones head means that thousands of women over generations have been subjected to unspeakable violations. On top of that, the added stigma of caste renders the Perna women unemployable – they are denied traditional jobs, thus perpetuating a vicious cycle.
Kristin Braddock’s aim is to empower these women and teenage girls through a hybrid for-profit and non profit model. Her social enterprise was created to provide an alternative and long term solution to prostitution by providing the skills and education necessary for these women to find a job and break out of the cycle through a paid, three month vocational training program. The program, among other things, teaches the women how to sew – they’ve already made a lot of quirky, handcrafted items which you can take a look at on SNF’s website. The sale of these items and consequent profit then provide the income needed to start a new life.
We’ve been following Kristin Braddock and her enterprise closely and we believe in her work. She started a campaign at crowdfunding website Indie GoGo (here’s the link; video embedded below) and needs all the help available in raising the money needed. Follow Sewing New Futures on facebook for updates.
Words: Diya Gupta
Image credit: Rachael Santillan
Video credit: Lights On Films