Tanya's Fundraiser for Narika

I often find myself in awe of the sheer luck that I was awarded in regards to my family, friends, and community. Given that I get to enjoy such luxuries, it becomes easy to forget the vile reality that many women bear on a global scale. Whether it's the brutal rape of a Rohingya female as she tiptoes around the forest to search for firewood so she can feed her family, the horrid backlash a young woman in a small town faces when she musters up the courage to tell her abusive father that she doesn't want to marry a man twice her age with half as much heart, or the constant beatings the infertile woman gets from her husband who's consumed by the pleasures of alcohol and the greed for a child, violence against women ubiquitously plagues every nation. As a woman growing up in the Bay Area, I was unaware of some of these issues as I was sheltered from the painful everyday life of my sisters across the world. Yet with recent disillusionment, I came to recognize that the prevalence of domestic and sexual violence doesn't exclude the Bay Area. There is work to be done in our own backyards. 

For that reason, I got in touch with the organizers of Narika, a nonprofit organization that was founded in 1992 by a group of immigrant women who identified the need for domestic violence services in the local communities of the Bay Area. These women opened the doors of Narika by use of an informal familial model of service, engaging victims as sisters rather than clients, and providing assistance in several different languages.

I chose this organization to not only raise funds, but also raise awareness for one of the world's greatest vices. 

We get to choose who we want to be in this world. Choose to be someone who makes it better. Thank you for your contributions.