Reception to follow the program

What does it take to change a life? Go inside an incredibly inspiring story about destiny and meet Dr. Abraham George, the visionary man behind Shanti Bhavan, the school featured in Netflix's critically acclaimed four-part documentary Daughters of Destiny, which chronicles the lives of five girls over a seven-year period as they navigate two very different worlds — that of the poverty and prejudice into which they were born, and the other of opportunity. Shanti Bhavan strives to break the cycle of poverty for India’s most disenfranchised children by providing them a holistic education by supporting them from the first day of school to their first day of work. Daughters of Destiny emerges as one of the most important narratives about poverty, hope, and destiny.

Join us for a special screening and conversation with Dr. Abraham George, and Director of Operations Ajit George to better understand how their team is empowering children from India's lowest socioeconomic class to create transformative change for their families and communities.

Watch the trailer for Daughters of Destiny:

Speakers

Dr. Abraham George is Founder and Principal of Shanti Bhavan, and Dean of the Indian Institute of Journalism and New Media in Bangalore. His career spans the finance and entrepreneurial sectors with senior leadership positions at JP Morgan Chase, Credit Suisse, Chemical Bank and the founding of Multinational Computer Models, Inc., which offered computerized systems to large multinational corporations to enable them to deal with their international financial risks. He has received several prestigious awards, and is the author of four books, including India Untouched: The Forgotten Face of Rural Poverty, a highly acclaimed narration of his first ten years’ of social work in India.

Ajit George is Director of Operations of Shanti Bhavan, where he manages various fields of operation, including fundraising, communications, partnerships, strategic planning, and mentorship and career development. also works with affiliated programs in India, including the Indian Institute of Journalism and New Media, a graduate school of journalism dedicated to using high-quality journalism as a vehicle to combating systemic political corruption, and the Baldev Medical & Community Center that provides healthcare, housing and community development for the surrounding 17 villages and a population of over 16,000.

Christen Brandt is the co-founder and Chief Programs Officer at She’s the First (STF), an NGO that fights gender inequality by supporting girls who will be first in their families to graduate high school and by training students to be global citizens. In 2018, she and the team at STF launched the Girls First Summit to train partners and make girl-centered program design more accessible to organizations in the Nairobi area. She has led focus groups on uncovering reasons for high drop-out rates in West Africa, created a framework for understanding community priorities in rural Nepal, and consulted on pregnancy policies in Uganda. Beyond her work at STF doing on site visits overseas, she teaches empowerment self-defense in Brooklyn, NY through the Center for Anti-Violence Education.

This program is part of the Season of India, a series of programs held in conjunction with the exhibition, The Progressive Revolution: Modern Art for a New India, on view at Asia Society Museum from September 14, 2018 to January 20, 2019.