Hyderabad women get recognition for service

Two Hyderabad women, Manju Latha Kalanidhi and Anusha Bharadwaj, are among the 17 Exemplary Changemakers of India, as per a report released by Sayty, an NGO that empowers women to fight violence in collaboration with Twitter India, on April 20, 2022. While Kalanidhi is a journalist and founder of the famous social initiative Rice Bucket Challenge, Bhardwaj is the founder of Voice 4 Girls, an entity that is into the empowerment of girls. Sayfty Trust and social media platform Twitter India joined hands to recognize exemplary changemakers and how they're leveraging Twitter to advocate for the #GlobalGoals and make a difference.

The partnership aimed to drive greater participation of women in conversations relating to SDGs (sustainable development goals, as set by the United Nations) with inclusion & safety as paramount. "Building on the occasion of International Women's Day (IWD), we celebrate 17 Indian activists and changemakers among us, working on the SDGs.

Through Twitter, they are changing the world one SDG at a time," Dr. Shruti Kapoor, Founder of Sayfty.About work done by Kalanidhi, the report states: "Her two-word mantra in life is to 'be useful'. Whether it is her social initiative, Rice Bucket Challenge, her profile as a journalist or her Whatsapp status, she likes using the online space to make a difference in the world. Manju's efforts towards furthering the goals of SDG 2 (No Hunger) - have been unprecedented. Curator of the Rice Bucket Challenge, her journey with Twitter began in 2010-2011, initially as a journalist. In her opinion, Twitter is reliable and easy to use, especially for reaching out to people.

Manju started the Rice Bucket Challenge on Twitter, inspired by the famous 2014 ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. She was able to leverage the power of Twitter to reach people when one of her Tweets was Retweeted 10,000 times in August 2014.Anusha Bharadwaj is the Founder-Director of SoCh for Social Change and also the Executive Director of VOICE 4 Girls, its sister organisation.

Her work involves training young girls to take charge of their lives and become future leaders of society. Anusha believes in the power of youth leadership to transform communities and nations. Her organization, SoCh, aims to provide college students and working women with opportunities to upskill themselves.

The efforts are in conjunction with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and empowering women. SoCh runs various programs that strive to enable women to take up leadership positions in the development sector. The other organization, VOICE 4 Girls, works to provide marginalized adolescent girls with support to be leaders. These efforts include engaging with girls and also boys from marginalized communities - to train them to make informed decisions and support the women in their lives.