Recognising everyday ‘wonder woman’ who make the city safer

Recognising this is the idea behind the Wonder Women meet up: a project by city-based AWARE India. The motive is to inspire women to stand up for themselves in a dangerous situation, by sharing everyday stories of personal grit and fortitude with a discerning audience. Housewives, students, corporate employees, etc… women from every walk of life will get together to discuss how Chennai can become an assault-free city, how they can be capable of defending oneself against harassment, and create support groups in each locality.

“We have been conducting self-defense workshops in schools, colleges, public spaces and so on for over a year - and have impacted over a 1000 women in Chennai. Apart from experts, we have girls who took the workshop themselves volunteer to come back and teach others. This is the kind of community we hope to develop. So we wanted to invite all these women now to meet, and take this project forward,” explains Sandhiyan Thilagavathy, founder of the organisation. 

Working under the banner of their initiative #NoMoreNirbhaya, the group will now host the meet-up where everyday safety hurdles and sharing of ideas on how to incorporate better safety measures in each area shall be discussed.

“We want women to find their own support group with others like themselves, who have their own survivor-stories to tell. Every story shared will be treated with utmost sensitivity and will only be used with full consent, for the purpose of educating, instilling self-confidence and inspiring hope among discerning audiences,” Sandhiyan concludes.