MEET THE ARTISTS
PANMELA CASTRO
Brazilian graffiti artist and feminist icon Panmela Castro has risen to the top of the male-dominated graffiti world, and in 2010 she won the Hutuz Award for best Artist of the Decade. She went on to found the nonprofit Rede NAMI, which uses street art to raise awareness about an issue that hits very close to home for Panmela: domestic violence.
SOHINI CHAKRABORTY
Sohini Chakraborty was a dancer and sociologist in 1996 when she began volunteering at a shelter for sex trafficking survivors in Kolkata, India. She knew instinctively that dance could help girls reclaim their bodies after the trauma of trafficking, and over the past 2 decades, Sohini has touched the lives of over 65,000 survivors in India, Nepal and Bangladesh. She's also trained over 60 survivors to become professional dance movement therapists through her nonprofit organization Kolkata Sanved.
FATOU DIATTA AKA SISTER FA
Senegalese singer and activist Sister Fa is a survivor of childhood female genital mutilation, and a controversial figure throughout West Africa. She regularly goes on tour, using her music and fame to spark a dialogue around genital mutilation, which is still taboo to discuss in many communities. Sister Fa is now based in Berlin, and has begun to do outreach work within African diaspora communities to end female genital mutilation throughout Europe.
ANNA TAYLOR
American fashion designer Anna Taylor first moved to Kenya to work in Nairobi’s slums when she was in high school. There, Anna met an unemployed seamstress named Judith, who she hired to sew for her high fashion clothing line, Judith & James. Inspired by Judith's transformation, Anna founded the James127 Foundation, a nonprofit that trains impoverished Kenyan women to become tailors. In 2013, at the age of 22, Anna debuted the Judith & James collection at New York Fashion Week, and to-date, 47 women have graduated from her training program.