evening
okay cool you’re awake okay I would like
to ask you actually all to close your
eyes for a minute and I want you to
imagine you are a 13 year old girl who
lives in Berlin dia and your dad is a
farmer and he’s 2 lakh in debt so he
talked often about committing suicide I
want you to imagine that your mother is
very ill and has been for many years so
it’s your responsibility as a 13 year
old girl to take care of cope and clean
for your four younger siblings so at the
age of 13 when your first marriage
proposal comes along your parents agree
thinking it’s one less mouth to feed you
get married to somebody who’s 35 and an
alcoholic and cannot hold down a job so
by the time you’re 16 you have two
children and it becomes your
responsibility to take care of them you
end up doing domestic work in many
different houses in your village in
order to make ends meet eventually your
husband suggests why did you go to the
city because there I’ve heard you’ll
make double the money that you make here
and we’ll all live happily so you trust
him you go with his friend to the city
and you take your two small children
with you and unbeknownst to you this
friend sell you to a brothel where
you’re given a bed and you’re forced to
sleep with five to ten men a day while
your children sleep under the bed
beneath you these open your eyes now I
have two questions for you guys to put
yourself in this woman’s shoes let’s say
you’re doing this job for about one year
sleeping with five to ten men a day for
one year you have an opportunity to run
away and try to become a domestic worker
but you don’t know what kind of
sure that will hold or whether you’ll be
able to make ends meet earning about six
thousand rupees a month or you can
continue in sector four you’re earning
about ten thousand rupees a month please
raise your hand if you would go to
domestic work take a chance run away and
go to the Met stick where many of you
okay and how many of you would continue
with sex work almost none a couple okay
almost all right so now you’re 18 and
you become incredibly ill you don’t know
what’s wrong you go to the doctor and it
turns out you’re hiv-positive you get
your Tillet you’re both of your children
tested and it turns out one of your
children is also hiv-positive your cost
now to run your household educate your
kids take care of their medications take
care of your own health cost about
twelve thousand rupees a month I’d like
to ask you again how many of you would
like to work at the domestic helper for
about eight thousand a month and how
many of you would like to do sex work
for about ten thousand a month raise
your hand if you choose domestic work
now very few and raise your hand if you
would choose sex work significantly more
okay um eventually the last question I
have for you is eventually somebody
comes along from a non-profit and said I
will take care of your kids
I will help them feed them educate them
but you have to give up your children
and they have to live with me this is
probably the hardest decision that sex
workers make in their life how many of
you would send your children to an NGO
to be taken care of by somebody else
most of you and how many would keep your
kids at home with you very few this is
probably the most difficult decision sex
workers wait so my name is Robin I run
one of these NGO that’s called Kranthi
and Kroenke empowers girls from Mumbai’s
red-light areas to become agents of
social change we currently work with 16
girls who are ages 13 to 21 who are all
survivors of trafficking daughters of
sex workers or girls who are born and
raised in the red-light area now the
story that I just shared with you is a
true story and every single one of our
girls or their moms were trafficked to
Mumbai between the ages of 9 and 16 so
many of them started doing expert at the
age of 9 10 11 now believe it or not
this is not a story about pity it’s not
a story about sadness it’s not a story
about how the world has come to an end
it is actually a
about happiness and you’re probably
wondering how on earth somebody from an
officer from the US Air Force ended up
in working in the red light area so I
actually began my journey seeking
happiness very very very young another
reason was because I grew up in a
household where I was in America the
land of the free and everything is
supposed to be perfect right but I grew
up in a home that was full of both my
parents had mental illnesses my mother
has schizophrenia and my father had
bipolar um and all of my childhood
memories are about domestic abuse of
violence within Louisville and I also
realized that a very young age 11 or 12
that I’m let’s get so baked the pants
fit my entire childhood with facing so
many barriers and never knowing what to
do but also constantly wondering what is
the purpose of life and eventually I was
a very good Indian girl and you know I
went through all of those motions that
you’re supposed to go through to find
happiness
according to Indian parents at least
right you have to get very good scores
in in school right where is that going
to lead you it’s as they do to a good
college how does that help well a good
college will lead you to a good job and
a good job will lead it to a nice house
and then they how can we do too many
cars and eventually you’ll be happy
right so I followed that path and I
ended up in the US Air Force where I was
a communications officer for seven years
and eventually eventually there were the
law in the US military at the time
called Don’t Ask Don’t Tell which meant
you can to be gay or lesbian and serve
openly so I would actually the only
Indian in the history of the military to
be kicked out under under this law Don’t
Ask Don’t Tell and I realized you know
what I have a car and I have a house and
I have lots of life but I’m not happy
and eventually that search for happiness
took me quite far to these hundred
countries as he mentioned searching
searching for what makes people happy no
matter what situation you come from
is there an equation that makes us happy
and eventually I ended up volunteering
in a lot of nonprofit and made my way to
India where I met several people and
decided to start from this NGO and this
NGO basically has shown me the path to
happiness and I think a lot of times
people talk about how wow you’ve
sacrificed so much you’ve given up so
much
to be here but the fact of the matter is
it’s these girls and this program that
has given me so much and you know with
with happiness I think that one of the
the really difficult things is sometimes
you can be really rich and you can have
all the money in the world and not be
happy and yet you can be a sex worker
probably on the streets living on the
streets and still manage to be happy so
what is the equation so when I started
from P I was asking a lot of these
questions and eventually you ended up
working with a lot of people a lot of
girls who have mental health issues
where have depression who are self
harming themselves cutting themselves
trying to commit suicide
those with a lot of different issues and
eventually this also brought me to to
meditation and yoga and all of these
things and I keep to realize that you
know happiness I think in so many ways
is about living for something bigger
than yourself
right and that is something that
chronically has given me and between all
of these you know experiences I’m not
gonna lie there are times when you know
you have to meet traffickers and
convince them not to traffic people
there are times you have to stop girls
from committing suicide
I spent nights in jail being beaten up
by the police and stuff happen and yet I
would still honestly say I have the best
job in the world and I am probably one
of the happiest I live one of the
so eventually we started while we’re
working with these girls as a teacher
particularly I really started thinking
about what is the point of Education I
think that the purpose of life I’m sure
all of you probably agree is to seek and
spread happiness right that is what we
do everything for that’s why we come to
TEDx
that’s why we hang out with our friends
that flubby earn money because we think
these things are going to lead to
happiness right so if that is the
purpose of life why is the purpose of
education something different
should an education teach us and train
us to be able to be happy so instead of
competition why don’t we take each about
collaboration why don’t we teach about
compassion how come nobody measures
happiness or compassion or any of these
things while we’re in school so while
I’m working with these girls I kind of
realize you know we have some girls who
severe mental health problems girls have
been traffic at very young ages we have
girls who you know depression all sorts
of problem you have a girl too we have a
girl whose death in our in our household
I speak a little bit of sign language as
well we have girls who are 17 and never
gone to school completely illiterate how
do you teach these girls collectively
who are never going to be successful in
a traditional sense so instead of
measuring how they do academically I
decided that we’re going to measure
happiness so we’ve created a curriculum
that really looks at all of those
components we all everyone read The
Huffington Post write ten ways to be
happier and yet all of those things that
keep repeating themselves they’re true
gratitude compassionate relationship
laughter and we’ve tried to build a
curriculum around creating happiness and
working towards and striving for
happiness rather than striving for money
or jobs or you know the traditional
sense of success I just like to share
two stories with you quickly um we have
a couple girls I mean all of my girls to
me are success stories the situations
that they’ve come from and the
backgrounds that they had anything that
they’re doing in life to me is a success
story um we have one girl who was 21 her
name is Shweta and she’s actually been
she’s studying abroad in New York and
she became the first girl from an Indian
red-light area ever to study abroad um
she came to us with his dream of you
know e America Donna and she had no
concept of what America was but just
thought she wanted to go
so she studied she took a couple gap
here she traveled quite quite a bit
doing a lot of volunteer work eventually
went abroad to study in New York I’m she
received over voluntary and her efforts
to work with Marsha life girl she
received an award from the United Nation
and has also received several awards in
in India um the second story I’d like to
share is a girl named pinky who came to
us five years ago and she also had been
sold off or married to somebody at the
age of nine and when she came to us it
was almost like having talking to a wall
she wouldn’t be able to articulate what
what was wrong what she’s feeling
anything she’s had five years of
intensive therapy now she would choose
to harm herself and cut herself burn
herself and you know this caused
constant problems within how some girls
trying to stop her from burning herself
somebody’s trying
you know you kind of problem and this
girl now I’ve been in therapy for five
years have been on medication for a year
and a half to me
the measure of success is that she has
not harmed herself for over a year now
and I think that you know when we when
many people have already spoken about
education and how we’re driving our
children to these crazy crazy measures
of success which sometimes aren’t
necessarily possible but should it be
what we’re measuring anyway you know who
died and said oh I should have worked a
few more hours last week nobody right
whenever we die we think about all the
people that we should have given spent
more time with all the people we should
have forgiven all the people we should
have work on passion for the people we
should have asked to be forgiven for
right so um I’m actually privileged
enough to have with me probably the
third story that I consider one of my
biggest teachers in my life the the
third pick hurry up honey um her name is
she’s full Jane and she is 21 years
sorry 22 yesterday she just her 22
yesterday and I I can’t explain to you
what this girl has taught me about
success about happiness so here she is
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thank you so much [Applause]