Ted talks on women condition in India

In this Ted talks, an Indian woman named Srishti Bakshi is speaking about women condition in her country and what did she does to make it better.

In a first part we will see the woman conditions in India, in the second part we will see her story and what pushed her to want to change the woman conditions in India and then we will see what she did to change it.

In India, women aren’t safe neither inside nor outside of their home. In fact, 45 women in an hour are facing to different degree of violence like domestic violence or rape. Women are scared to go outside, and no one is asking how wrong this is.

In fact, men are taking a big place in India, and even if there is 600 millions of Indian women, only men are present in the street by night for example. Men have power, and when there is a marriage, this is the moment when the women became the propriety of the men. There is too much gender inequality in India, and this makes women scared of trying to become independent.

The scared take a big place in the life of Srishti Bakshi during a long time.

Indeed, when she was 14 her parent let her go to the theater by night, alone with a friend and it was for her the beginning of the freedom. But during this night, a man touched Srishti’s breast and then begging her nightmare. She doesn’t want to go out and she was scared.

But one day, after heard the history of a rape closed to her house, she remembered that she was a victim too and she decided to fight for safer spaces for women by increasing their mobility in the objective to give their life back.

So, for 230 days she waked across the length of India from the south to the north and traveled 2, 300 miles, to understand what made India one of the most unsafe countries in the world.

She walked through 170 cities, towns and villages and met 85, 000 women.

During this walked she met women who met various problems and difficulties and she understands that the mobility plays a big role in the women freedom.

Indeed, women wanted to be financially independent and be able to protect herself.

Then, she helped those women by given self-defense classes for example. And thanks to another woman that she met named Jai Bharathi, a movement for women mobility has been created, in which women can learn how to drive. Today, thanks to them, women can drive their own cars or scoters, but also for Ubers, taxis or be delivery agents for Amazon for example.

1 800 women drivers are now connecting on a national network where they can reach out to each other for support and to share experiences.

This strengthens the feeling of independence, autonomy, and security of the women, and they hope to transform the culture and increase the impact on the Indian economy.

But Srishti don’t want to stop here and hope to be able to help 1 million of women in the following 10 years.

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