Anuradha Bhosale is an Indian social activist. She is the founder and director of Avani, an organization based in Kolhapur, Maharatra, that works on women’s and children’s rights and the plight of child laborers.
Wiki/Biography
Anuradha Bhosale was born as Agatha Amolik on Monday, December 20, 1971 (49 years old in 2020). Her star sign is Sagittarius. She studied at St. Theresa’s Girls High School in Harigaon till Class 5 and later shifted to a missionary-run girls hostel in Harigaon, Ahmednagar, as her family moved back to her hometown of Pokal in Ahmednagar. She subsequently completed her schooling in Shrirampur and obtained her Masters in Social Work from Nirmala Niketan College of Home Sciences, Mumbai in 1991. While in college, she started working with migrant children in Kolhapur who crushed stones used for paving roads and introduced the principles of microcredit to the families of these children and helped set up women’s self-help groups. She also worked with organizations like Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti, Rankala Bachao and Mahila Sangharsh.
appearance
Eye color: Black
Hair color: Black
Family and caste
She was born into a Catholic family, and her family belonged to a low caste until her grandfather converted the family to Catholicism.
Parents and siblings
Her father is a kindergarten teacher with a monthly salary of Rs 150. Her mother is a domestic worker with a monthly income of Rs 10. She is the eleventh of twelve children.
Husband and children
In 1996, she married a lower caste man and moved to Kolhapur. Her mother-in-law and sister-in-law started harassing her, and her husband did not defend her. Later, she learned that her husband was having an affair with another woman, and one night, her husband threw Anuradha and her children out of the house. Anuradha and her husband have two children: a daughter named Kadambari and a son named Grant.
Profession
She started her career in 1992 in the Jalgaon Water Supply Department. In 1993, she worked as a project leader in the Social Work Department of Bajaj Auto in Pune, managing environmental and sanitation projects in 124 villages in western Maharashtra as part of the company’s corporate social responsibility program. In 1996, she joined the Verala Development Society (VDS), an organization dedicated to providing housing to homeless, divorced and widowed women.
Verala Development Association logo
The following year, she joined VDS’s project Avani to conduct a survey of migrant children in Kolhapur and became the first person to conduct such a survey. The word “Avani” is an abbreviation of the Marathi alphabet, where “A” stands for Ann (meaning food), “Va” stands for Vastra (meaning clothes), and “Ni” stands for Niwara (meaning shelter). From 1997 to 2002, she was the sole employee of Avani, with no office or staff to assist.
Avani logo
Her first step was to help organize women self-help groups and introduce microfinance to migrant families. Subsequently, she established 36 schools with 50 migrant children in each school. However, she found that educating the children alone was not enough and founded the Women and Children Rights Movement (WCRC) to educate, empower and unite vulnerable women (who may be widowed, divorced and abandoned) to tackle the root causes of child labor. Her efforts paid off and the women became aware of their legal rights and in 2010, as many as 3,741 women received government grants in the form of cash, which helped save the rights of many child laborers. WCRC has a large number of offices in 15 rural villages in and around Kolhapur (as of 2020). Avani works to save child laborers (who are exploited, abandoned and poor) in the Kolhapur region and provide them with food, education and health facilities. Avani also ensures the prevention of child trafficking and female infanticide. Avani even convinced the migrant workers to send their children back to the village to study, and for those who could not, Anuradha made sure they attended schools run by Avani or the brick factory school. In 2002, India drafted the Right to Education Act, which provided free and compulsory education for all Indian children aged 6-14. Anuradha and Avani advocated for its passage and turned it into law, and in April 2010, the Right to Education Act was finally passed. In 2005, a group of migrant workers asked Anuradha to help build special homes for migrant children, so she helped create the Avani Children’s Home, which was initially just a hut made of mud and cow dung, with no electricity or running water.
Anuradha Bhosle with students
Facts/Trivia
- Anuradha was forced to work as a child laborer from the age of six. She served four families, doing manual labor such as washing pots and pans, washing clothes, sweeping and mopping the floor. In addition to earning a living, she also had to study, and sometimes even worked on an empty stomach. However, some of her employers sympathized with her and allowed her free time to study; they also gave her food to eat.
- During her schooling, the school fee was Rs. 25, but she could not afford it due to her family’s financial situation. Her teacher helped her and waived her tuition fee. She said,
Everything I give will be accepted by the institution.”
- Her high school and middle school education was funded by a church pastor (with whom she had previously worked). The pastor also helped her pay for two months of college tuition. Later, her university provided her with financial assistance. Some of her teachers also provided financial assistance for her study tours.
- Anuradha is fluent in Marathi, Hindi and English. However, before she learned English, the selector of the School of Social Work, Nirmala Niketan, almost rejected her because she did not know English. The selector thought that language might be a barrier to study as she only knew Hindi and Marathi. According to Anuradha,
I convinced them that I would learn the language and it would not pose a problem. That day was a Friday. The selectors asked to give them some time to consider the case and by Monday, I was selected.”
- According to Anuradha, she is a Catholic. Her grandfather was born a Hindu but converted to Catholicism because he belonged to the lowest caste hierarchy and was therefore barred from entering temples, segregated from the main village, denied education, sentenced to slavery, and had no independent source of income. At the time, a convert to Christianity of any denomination could technically become an outsider in Hindu society, so these taboos did not apply to him, according to reports. Speaking about the matter, Anuradha said,
Christian missionaries treated these once excluded people with compassion and human warmth. I was raised Catholic and had no inferiority complex. The Catholic missions in my area established schools and hostels where I could easily receive an education and did not face discrimination. The Catholic emphasis on love and compassion for fellow man and the teaching that serving humanity is equivalent to serving God must have laid the foundation for my service-oriented attitude.
- When Anuradha first went to the brick factory to persuade the owner not to employ child labour, the owner sent thugs to threaten and beat her. However, she stood firm in her stance and the owner had to support her.
- Anuradha’s friends provided her with a place to stay after her husband threw her and her children out of the house. Other friends also helped Anuradha for a few months. Even Arun Chavan (president of Avani), Comrade Govind Pansare (former Communist leader in Kolhapur who fought cases for the underprivileged) and Dr. Sunil Kumar Rawat (a social worker in Kolhapur) helped her during that time. Eventually, she was able to stand up and continue her social work.
- She has been called the “Bandit Queen of India’s social movements,” comparable to India’s legendary bandit-turned-politician Phoolan Devi.
- She has participated in talk shows such as News18 Lokmat’s Great Bhet (2014) and India TV’s Stree Shakti (2015).
Anuradha Bhosle in News18 Lokmat’s Great Bhet (2014)
- She is the 2016 recipient of the Women With Wings Award, a global award that recognizes courageous women working to empower women around the world.
- Her organization, Avani, is a partner of the Global Fund for Children and the recipient of the 2020 Juliette Guimon Courage Award.
- In 2020, she appeared in the Karamveer Special of the game reality show Kaun Banega Crorepati hosted by Amitabh Bachchan along with Nagraj Manjule.
Anuradha Bhosle at Kaun Banega Crorepati
Categories: Biography
Source: HIS Education