The Vision
To break the cycle of generational poverty that deprives young women of opportunities and forces them into prostitution to support their families. We empower through education and vocational training that can potentially offer the victimized women an alternative means to financially become independent. We have recently decided to help fund education of poor children in the US, particularly girls. These are children of domestic workers and gardeners that cannot get a college education without huge, burdensome loans or scholarships (that are more often than not denied).
OUR MISSION
Lighthouse For Women collaborates with like-minded organizations to break generational poverty and empower women wherever possible in terms of opportunities to oversee and be accountable.
- Provide basic literacy (since most are illiterate) to the women and or vocational training.
- Educate daughters of victims and other girls in abject poverty (prevention).
- Provide jobs & small business opportunities for young women to make them financially independent.
- Facilitate and build an ecosystem of partners to enable the above three areas
ONGOING WORK SINCE 2009 IN CHENNAI, INDIA:
- Providing life and vocational skills (tailoring, basket-weaving, cooking, and handicrafts) at a low security prison where prostitutes and human trafficked victims are housed.
- Supporting girls to start small busineses when possible and facilitating job placement; paying emergency rent / hospital / school fees for women and their children as needed.
- Lighthouse collaborates with other NGOs (Non Governmental Organizations) to reach oppressed and financially poor young people to break generational poverty, and transform lives. We partner with Asha Jyothi in Hyderabad, an NGO that provides housing and skills training for hundreds of young people each year who cannot afford higher studies or who have discontinued their formal education; A Children's Home in Chennai that provides a loving home for orphaned and abandoned children, and educates them. Also in my village we have been providing since 2015, a free after school tuition program for all subjects, and especially English and Math.
