Professor Sabir's Posse

Matt Canevaro
Proffessor Sabir
English 201b
March 2, 2011
Usha Narayane, the name of a twenty-eight year old, short, black haired woman in the book "Half the Sky" by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. Living in the slums of Kasturba Nagar a glimpse of a woman self empowered shines. Having graduated from a university Usha was a rare sight in her old home. Being educated and fearless, she would appear to be immune to social lashing.

In Usha's old home, she was attacked by a gang leader by the name of Akku Yadav. Seeing her as a threat for being an educated woman Akku decided to corner her in her faimly's home. However, Usha fought back preventing Akku and his gang from hurting her, meanwhile seeing Usha fight back, the people of Kasturba Nagar fought them off, driving the gang away from Usha.

After the victory over the gang, Usha saw an oppurtinity to get rid of them once and for all by reporting the gang and thier leader for attempted assualt. Seeing her courage and bravery the woman of Kasturba all rose up to go to the cops and report the gang leaders crimes. In the end Akku Yadav was brought to court and dealt with. One of his victims he previously raped spoke up saying "This time, either i will kill you, or you will kill me" and on que each woman started stabbing him once before passing the knife around and finnaly removing his genitals from him. After the gang disbanded, seeing thier leader dead and fearing retaliation the members just disappeared. With the gang gone now, the community turned to Usha to be thier leader and protect them just like they would protect her. So now don't be suprised if you have a hard time finding a woman named Usha Narayane in a small town called Kasturba Nagar.
 

Angelina Moreno
Professor Sabir
English 201B
8 March, 2011

Suthina is a young woman who has a passion to help people create better living situations for themselves. She grew up middle class in India with many education opportunities. Suthina had attended college and focused her studies in literacy. Even though she mainly studied literacy, she still took time to try and organize poor villagers. An umbreakable incident impacted Suthina, and with that changed her focus from literacy to social work.

India is filled with brothels and prostitutes that flood them. Many poor villagers see prostitution as a way of easy money, and some are unfortunate and are forced into that lifestyle. Brothels have corrupted some police men who turn their heads once bribed. Prostitution in India has brought a higher percentage of HIV cases due to the practice of not using protection.

Suthina tried to help out poor villagers, but that angered some men who in turn raped her. Angry that she was made to feel as if it was her fault, she decided to help out girls in similar and worse situations as her. Suthina began her own orginization to fight prostitution and the people that keep it alive.

On her own, Suthinawould have lacked the resources to wage her campaings against the brothels, but American donors have supported her and multiplied her impact. Catholic relief services in particular has been a stalwart supporter of Sathina and the Prajwala programs. The networks and introductions that Bill Dryton made for her,as an Ashoka Fellow, also magnified her voice. It's a prototype of the kind of alliance between first wold and third that the abolitionist movement need. (60).
 

Kimber Soriano
Professor Sabir
English 201 A
9 March 2011

In Half The Sky by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, Meena Hasina is one of the empowered woman in the first chapter. She lived in the town of Forbesgunge, India. She is a dark skinned Indian woman and she is somewhat 30 years old when Nick interviewed her. She did not have any education because her family sold her into prostitution in a brothel run by Nutt clan that engaged prostitution of many girls in Nepal border (17-19).

When Meena was 12 years old and matured enough ,she began to work as a sex slave and the brothel owner started to prostitute her with the customers to have sex with them. She was often beaten and raped when she resisted to fight back the brothel owner. Meena had been struggling for so long that she yielded after the beatings . As a result, she bore two children Naina and Vivek. The brothel owner took them as captives as to prevent Meena from running away in the brothel, but Meena decided to manage her escape in order to save her beloved children (19-23).

Meena decided to save her two children left behind in the brothel and so she started to make her journey into the brothel. She was bravethat she confronted the brothel owner to surrender them to her but the gangs tried to kidnap them again. She did not give up to bring them back until she saw her son got away and he was very happy to see her. She found help from the Apne Aap Women Worldwide, an organization that fights slavery in India, and they raid the brothel house and rescue Naina. Now Meena and her two children were reunited and lived peaceful. Meena became a community organizer for fighting against slavery and prostitution as well she studies to become a teacher to teach people not to prostitute their daughters (30-35).
 

In the essays posted, only one Kimber's, shows page numbers. If the other students use citations, they are not attributed.

Repeat this assignment again with another subject and in three paragraphs answer the question about empowerment and use three citations: one in-text, one paraphrase and the last a long citation.

Also, students need to read the essays aloud before posting. Many sentences do not make sense because they are missing key words.

Before posting hit preview.
 

Julien Chen
English 201B
Professor Sabir
7 March 2011

Srey Neth

Srey Neth, a fourteen-year-old looking prostitute, who did not know her actual age, is from a small village located near the urban Poipet in Cambodia. She was brought to Poipet by a female cousin who promised Neth a job selling fruit in the big city. Her cousin instead sold Neth to a brothel, which checked if her hymen was intact and auctioned off her virginity. During her time in Poipet, she entertained customers in a cheap guest house that doubled as a brothel. Neth had a full face, but her body was skinny and weak, her face was filled with cosmetics, like she had just finished playing with her mother’s (35).

When visited by Nick Kristof, the co-author of Half the Sky, she was extremely nervous. Kristof was her first foreign customer and she was incredibly wary that he was sent as a test of her loyalty. Srey Neth has only been working at the brothel for approximately a month, but she still claims that the brothel was hell. When Kristof offers to purchase Neth from the brothel, her eyes light up and passionately proclaims her feelings toward working in the brothel. She proclaims, “This is hell, [y]ou think I want to do this?” (37).

Kristof purchases Srey Neth for $150 and was given a receipt. He contributed some of his own money to help Neth start a small shop in her native village. Initially, Neth’s shop bloomed, it was the only shop in the village, but others saw the success she gained and started the own stores, Neth’s family also took advantage of her and raided the store for free food. “Her mother recalled later: ‘Neth got mad, she said we [the family] had to stay away or everything would be gone. She said she had to have money to buy new things.’ But in a Cambodian village, nobody listens to an uneducated teenage girl. The feast went ahead, the store was emptied. Afterward, Neth had no money to replenish her inventory. Four months after the shop had opened, her business plan had collapsed.”(41).
 

Asianna Barner
Proffessor Sabir
English 201b
March 14, 2011

Srey Rath is a self confident Camdodian girl who is pretty, vibrant, and bubbly. When she was 15 year's old her family had ran out of money so she had decided to move to Thailand to work as a dishwasher. When Rath got to Thailand she was excited by her first view of the city. To her surprise when she got to Thailand she did not get the job she was planning to get, instead the job agent handed her and other girl's off to gangster's who took them to Malaysia.

Rath was torn when she figured out what was going on. Rath and the other girls were forced to be sex slaves at the brothel that was ran by gangsters. Rath and the girls didnt get much food because the customers didnt like fat girls.

After a couple months Rath had exscaped and went back to Cambodia. When she got back to Cambodia she got in contact with an aids group who helps girls who have been trafficked start new beginings. Rath soon opened her own business so that she would beable to take care of her parents.
 

Marcela Gutierrez
Professor Sabir
English 201A
11 March 2011

From the book, “Half the Sky,” the author, Nicholas D. Kristof comes across a twenty-eight year old female, Usha Narayane living in the slum of Kasturba Nagar, who is not the typical local woman and although she is short in height, she does not lack any courage or an educational background. Looking at her her outside appearance of her long black hair, a round face, and thick eyebrows, as well as the benefit of carrying on just enough weight to prove her achievements within a country like India that has suffered from malnutrition for so long. Both of her parents being literate also made sure that when it came to their kids, education would very much become a part of their lives, and so all five of the Narayane children graduated from a university. Usha who comes from not the average family in the village where she lives is also not the average female that can talk nonstop and is known amongst others as fearless and a hero. “She’s fearless,” Alka said. “She doesn’t get frightened by anyone” (48-49).

Usha holds a degree in hotel management and had plans to take up a job offer in a hotel outside her village, but when she came back to visit her family is when she crossed paths with a mobster and king of the slum, Akku Yadav. In a span of fifteen years, Akku had risen in status from building a small business empire and as well as his mob terrorizing and ingraining fear amongst the people throughout the village by either threatening to rape them, actually doing it, or piling up dead bodies on the streets. The police were no help either and even if complaints were made no action towards a resolution would ever take a place. Usha once went to file a complaint against Akku Yadav after he had destroyed the home of a neighbor and sadly the police informed him of Usha’s complaint, which infuriated him with anger. He showed up with forty of his thugs and surrounded Usha’s home threating to throw a bottle of acid on her face, but having no fear she shouted back that she will never give in and so she turned on the cylinder of gas with a match in her hand.
If you break into the house, I’ll light the match and blow us all up, she shouted widely. The thugs could smell the gas, and they hesitated. Back off, or you’ll get blown up, Usha shouted again (51).

Word quickly spread throughout the village of how Usha was able to win a battle of confrontation, and so the Dalits were very proud of her and because of that they were able to build up some courage themselves. Hundreds of villagers came together, picking up stones and sticks and as they approached Akku Yadav’s men, they were able to scare the thugs off and then later burned Akku’s house down. The police arrested Akku Yadav for his own safety and when his bail hearing came to the day, hundreds of woman marched to the courtroom and sat near the front with a plan of action waiting to happen. As the angry women shouted fearlessly, they first pulled chili powder from under their clothing and threw it in Akku Yadav’s face and then pulled out knives, which resulted in his death right there in the courtroom. It was obvious that Usha was the leader and although she was able to prove that she wasn’t in the courtroom that day, the police arrested her, but the women were there to fight and protect her so they all claimed responsibility for Akku’s death. It was impossible to point out which single stab killed him out of several hundreds so Usha was later released from jail, where she unraveled a new, more positive way of life not just for herself but for the villagers as well.
She began a new life as a community organizer, using her management skills to bring the Dalits together to make pickles, clothing, and other products to sell in the markets. She wants the Dalits to start businesses to raise their incomes, so that they can afford more education. (53)