What women from a red light district are doing on a crowdfunding site

The Mukti women with New Light founder Urmi Basu.

Life can be dark and suffocating in the narrow lanes of Kalighat, a historic old quarter of Kolkata famous for its temple to Hindu goddess Kali. The crowded precincts house a red light district where hundreds of vulnerable, impoverished women from India and neighboring countries have been swallowed up by the flesh trade for centuries.

They have been abused, exploited, and looked down upon by the very society that uses them. Violence, discrimination, and disease have been a daily part of their lives. Some are newly trafficked and some belong to inter-generational prostitution families.

“There are over 1,500 such women who reside in the area, and over 500 who float in and out,” says Urmi Basu of New Light, an NGO that has been working with women and children in Kalighat for 15 years. Its office is located close to the temple.

Over the years, NGOs like hers have stepped into these lives, shining a light where they can – be it health, rights, rehabilitation, or education of their children. But the 21st century has brought in intervention of a new kind: technology.

The Mukti Sanitary Pad Project is one such initiative.

Women making sanitary pads at Mukti’s production unit.

Started in March by New Light and supported by Aakar Innovations and the American not-for-profit Village Volunteers, it is helping women from the area turn into social entrepreneurs – by teaching them how to make and distribute sanitary napkins.

The Mukti project is also busy raising money on crowdfunding platform Impact Guru. It has a campaign target of US$7,182 – and with over 71 percent of that met within three weeks, it’s getting there fast.

Tech for good

Impact Guru, which calls itself a tech for good venture, is a crowdfunding platform for NGOs and social enterprises. This will be the first time it has picked a project for women in a red light area.

“We strongly believe in supporting the cause of women’s empowerment and thought this was a wonderful cause for crowdfunding,” its co-founder Piyush Jain tells Tech in Asia.

Impact Guru co-founder Piyush Jain

Menstrual hygiene

Liberation