I got my passport when I was 18 and went on a church trip to Haiti which opened my eyes to the sufferings of people in other parts of the world. Life in America is very comfortable, I thought to myself,” ponders Kristin Braddock over breakfast in her rented apartment at Jangpura Extension.
From the heart of posh south Delhi, she catches a bus to reach the city’s outskirts – Najafgarh, her destination. The minute she steps inside the room with pink walls, young girls busy on their sewing machines, embroidering different patterns, look at her and smile.
Born in New York, Braddock started her own business right after school. She even took up a few corporate jobs but her love for humanity and urge to work for the betterment of communities were more compelling. “I did my university degree in Organisational Communication and was very active in social work in school and college. So, I decided to travel and see how other societies function,” says the US national who has travelled to 37 countries so far.
“For three years I did pretty boring jobs in Human Resource and came to India first in 2010, as part of my travel trips. But this visit kicked off the 18-year-old in me who wanted to work for social development,” she says. She originally wanted to go to Ghana and South Africa to work in the field of human trafficking but India kept calling her back.
“In India, I worked in different NGOs in Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata. But it was during 2011 that I met a few women, as a field staffer with an NGO. Though I didn’t speak any Hindi back then, the women asked me to keep coming back,” she says with an element of surprise in her voice.
The more she got to know about the situation of this group of women, the more she got involved in their lives.
“Belonging to the Perna caste, these women were stuck in the whirlwind of circumstantial poverty. Their ancestors were farmers but since farming lost importance, the women were forced into prostitution, to make a living. At the age of 14 or 15, these girls get married and the bride price ranges from Rs 50,000 to Rs 4 lakh. After the first child is born, these women are forced into prostitution by their in-laws for the need of survival. It is a vicious circle that they get caught in, yet they want to work and improve their economical
condition instead of asking for charity!”
Motivated by their spirit, the 29-year-old grouped with her ex-colleagues and set up Sewing New Futures where these women could learn sewing. “We are one year old now and have two rooms, 14 sewing machines and three interlock machines. They are an incredible bunch of women, aged between 15 and 22, and their joy lights up the rooms,”
she says with pride at having helped empower them economically.
Though the issues of being able to pay the rent on time, getting sufficient orders and plans to open more such sewing centres are on top of her mind, yet she smiles and says,
“I’m the hustler. It is my duty to ensure all this is done!”