Gitanjali Babbar

Delhi's GB road is the biggest red light area in the nation's capital.  Behind most of the faces lie untold stories of pain and suffering.  More than 4,000 women and 1500 children live in 77 brothels, most of whom are there by force, having been kidnapped, sold as young children, or trafficked.  But these sex workers have found a friend in Gitanjali Babbar, who has made it her mission to empower them through love. ​

Three and half years ago, Gitanjali found herself launching Kat-Katha, a nonprofit that's quietly been transforming G.B. Road brothels into classrooms, community centers, and safe spaces for the women and their children to learn, explore creative arts, and come alive with a sense of connection, expression, and possibility.  Through Kat-Katha, Gitanjali provides women sex workers in New Delhi with caring support and the chance to pursue a basic education, to develop job-related skills for alternate livelihoods in tailoring, weaving, and craft making, and to form a basic understanding of their rights and a foundation for self-esteem.  Kat-Katha also offers classes to children living in brothels.  ​Today, through her initiative, Gitanjali has worked to uplift more than 3,000 sex workers over the past several years, and Kat-Katha (consisting of 120 volunteers from around the globe) works with all 77 brothels on G.B. Road and runs a school for 17 brothel children.  “It pains me to see women, with fine spirits and pure hearts, isolated from mainstream society facing tremendous challenges," Gitanjali says.  "But when I see them overcoming challenges through our initiative, it makes me so proud of being a woman.”

A graduate in journalism and a post-graduate in development communications, Gitanjali Babbar's journey began when she became involved as a student with National Aids Control Organisation (NACO) where she was tasked with surveying groups including brothel women on topics related to contraceptives and family planning.  As she probed the women on such intimate topics, she came to feel that the survey conversations were forced and mechanical.  She used to wonder, “I don't even know these women.  They don't even know me.  How am I supposed to ask them such personal and private questions?”  She realized they needed a support system to talk to about their personal issues apart from the regular information they they received about safe sex.  Gitanjali did just that.  Through the strong bonds of friendship she forged with them, she realized the unfairness of their existence.  She felt they were trapped into these brothels where all their dreams were suppressed and instead they were treated as "€œpuppets" satisfying the desires of others.  She wanted to break the strings holding these women back from living a life of their own choice. And one day when a woman asked her that she wanted to learn to read, Gitanjali started her work by teaching women in the brothels. Soon their children joined in and took over the learning space. Next came the demands for learning alternative skills and a small tailoring centre began at G.B. Road. KatKatha has grown organically by listening to the needs of women and children. And as Gitanjali opened her heart to hear the women's stories more deeply, she discovered -- even amid the grim reality of these sex workers serving 20-40 customers in a day -- that "in every brothel, I found some person or another who was waiting to love you.”  

Kat-Katha's impact has been profound, yet has grown organically and serendipitously -- powered by Gitanjali's willingness to continue to open her heart in increasing ways to the goodness around her.  Amid all her external impact -- including being named among the 100 "Amazing Indians" of 2014 and having graced the May 2015 cover of Femina with her inner and outer beauty -- Gitanjali cares most about connecting with the human spirit.  She stops to reconfigure her inner alignment.  Last February, she partook in a 30-day "In-Turnship" at the Gandhi Ashram in Ahmedabad, where she engaged in daily practices like meditation and sweeping, and held circles with servant ladders from all walks of life.  At the star-studded evening earlier this year in which she received one of the L'Oreal Paris Femina Women's Awards, she brought as her guest one of her students from Kat-Katha who wants to be an actress.  Gitanjali wanted this young woman to be able to visualize what her future might look like.  As Gitanjali says, "When I meet volunteers who say they want to make a change, I tell them to change themselves first -- that is how we can make this world a better place."

Gitanjali Babbar is woman on a mission, a seeker journeying the path, and a sister connecting with family in the most unlikely of places.