Urmi Basu – India

Ms.Urmi Basu

Urmi Basu

New Light

India

Urmi Basu is featured in the second night of Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide.

Urmi Basu is the founder of New Light, a secular nonprofit charitable trust that operates as a creche-cum-night-shelter to protect and educate young girls, children and women at high risk in a red light area of Kolkata, India.

Basu is a well-educated, middle class woman who was born in Kolkata. She credits her parents with raising her with a great deal of freedom and a strong sense of her own social responsibility.

After her second husband expressed discomfort with the work she was doing and the issues she was talking about, Basu left the marriage. Using her own savings, she founded New Light in 2000. Her goal is to support and educate these children, particularly the girls, and provide opportunities for them beyond the red light district.

Link: https://www.halftheskymovement.org/pages/urmi-basu