In the pursuit for gender freedom and girl’s empowerment through education, PVCHR in collaboration with Kamalika Foundation, on August 16, 2016, had organised, ‘Bicycle for Freedom’ program. Five bicycles were distributed to the girls who are financial weak and prone to sexual abuse. With the financial assistance from two hundred Swedish donors, so far, eighty bicycles have been distributed to the underprivileged girls. Smita Sharma, a photo photojournalist, who has taken up the cause of sexual violence in India and abroad, was present. Here’s a report by Shruti in the weekly column Torture & Dignity that will be published every Saturday exclusively in Different Truths.

In a time where domestic violence against women are increasing leaps and bounds , child abuse and molestation is happening on daily basis and victims of such terrible incidences are coerced to lives with social stigma – education plays a significant role to prevent such cases and empower victims.  In this context, with mission to empower girl’s educations that are financially weak and prone to sexual abuse, People’s Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR) along with Rajdulari Foundation (Sweden) initiated ‘Bicycle for Freedom’ project.

With the financial assistance from two hundred Swedish donors, so far, eighty bicycles have been distributed to the underprivileged girls.

Further, continuing this project – in the pursuit for gender freedom and girl’s empowerment through education, PVCHR in collaboration with Kamalika Foundation, on August 16, 2016 has organised, ‘Bicycle for Freedom’ program. Five bicycles were distributed to the girls who are financial weak and sexually abused, yet determined to pursue their studies against all odds. With a bicycle, PVCHR believes, a girl’s harassment might be mitigated and provide an opportunity to improve overall quality of her life along with pursuing her studies.

To empower, encourage and in their pursuit for social justice, PVCHR had organised this program in association with famous photo-journalist Smita Sharma. Through her photography and documentary, Smita has been continuously highlighting cases of sexual violence in India and abroad. She has made a photo documentary on the thirty five sexual victims from Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Jharkhand and West Bengal. In this mission, PVCHR has provided her assistance in documenting cases of sexual violence from Varanasi, Sonbhadra and Jaunpur. In order to collect fund to raise awareness against sexual abuse,

Smita started her campaign on kickstarter.com.

At the first stage of this project, ‘Bicycle for Freedom’ program was organised at Varanasi at the Kamesh Hut hotel, Jagatganj on August 16, just after India’s Independence Day celebrations.

During this program famous photographer Ravi Mishra and Human Rights activist and researcher Amit Singh were awarded with Jan Mitra Award, 2016. Chief Guest of this program was Rakesh Kumar Singh, who is on national bicycle tour raising awareness on domestic violence against women. Singh has been toured nine Indian states so far and spent 28 months in this campaign.

This program was conducted by Anoop Srivastava. Member of governing committee, Dr. Mahendra Pratap and Chief Executive Officer of PVCHR Dr. Lenin Raghuvanshi, and Dr. Rajiv Singh thanked participants for making this program successful.

©Shruti Nagvanshi

Shruti Nagvanshi

Shruti is a social activist and co-founder of People’s Vigilance Committee on Human Right (PVCHR), India. A strong activist in favour of justice for the downtrodden, aptly describes Shruti’s persona. She has won many national and international awards for her work in promoting social justice and defending rights of the marginalised, vulnerable Dalit women and children, mainly in the eastern part of Uttar Pradesh, India.