Srishti Bakshi is Out on a 3,800 Km Walk To Make Streets Safer

Thirty-year-old Srishti Bakshi has embarked on a 3800-kilometre journey from Kanyakumari to Srinagar on foot to sensitise citizens about violence against women.

There were many trigger points behind Srishti's move to make a difference. She talks about a bus ride back home in central Hong Kong last year, when she read the news about the gang-rape of a mother and daughter in Bulandshahr district of Uttar Pradesh.

“Women in this country are not safe even as a family unit. This incident left me questioning and changed my life completely,” she said.

Instead of being an armchair critic, Srishti decided to work towards bringing about a transformation by helping women fight violence and conducting financial and digital literacy workshops.

She believes that technology is a long-term solution to all the issues faced by Indian women. She has tied up with several companies like Google to assist her in providing the required resources and teaching material.

Also Read: Empowering Rural Women in Assam Through the Internet

Srishti has named her network of change-makers ‘CrossBow’. Her goal is to take the movement forward by harnessing the power of the internet to assist women to empower themselves. The marketing professional (who has worked with companies like Red Bull and Otterbox) is confident that she isn’t alone in her modern day Dandi march and has described the response thus far as “fantastic”.

My aim is to help open a gateway for women to empower themselves one step at a time.

Srishti Bakshi, Founder of CrossBow Miles

Walking through the expanse of the country has taken a lot of preparation from Srishti’s end. She expressed that planning the entire walk was a ‘logistical nightmare’. The walls of her house were filled with huge maps of India, crisscrossed with threads running through the various places she intended to cover.

Srishti is neither an athlete nor a social activist but, has been walking 25 kilometers every 24 hours for over 46 days. She spent an entire year training for the grueling journey.

I used to wake up at 4 every morning. I worked on my core strength as well as muscle repair and recovery. It was a lot a hard work. But ultimately, what keeps me going is the cause which makes every little effort worth it.

Srishti Bakshi, Founder of CrossBow Miles

Also Read: How a Group of Six Dalit Women in Rural Andhra Empowered Thousands