Milaap's online fundraiser for Medical | Milaap
Fundraising to help acid attack survivor Anu undergo a medical surgery. Join this cause!
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    Milaap
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    This fundraiser will benefit

    Anu Mukherejee

    from New Delhi, Delhi

Anu Mukherjee's story-

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Anu’s story is one that makes me question the quote “bad things never happen to good people”. A truly ironic story that made me question a lot of things. Anu didn’t have the best childhood growing up. She and her brother were adopted by her aunt as her parents had a lot of children and her aunt had none. Anu and her bother shifted to New Delhi to live with their aunt who was supposedly supposed to treat them like her own. She was nice to them for a couple of years till Anu’s parents passed away in a tragic car accident. After her parents passed away the aunt wanted to get Anu married off to someone much older than her. Anu was very against this proposal and decided to be brave so she took her brother and filed a complaint at the nearest police station. With a child marriage case under her belt, Anu’s aunt then tried to persuade Anu to take the case back as it would destroy her. Anu took the case back and started living with her best friend and her family.

The family took In a helpless Anu and her bother. With no family left and a little brother to raise, Anu was caught in an unfortunate situation at a very early age. A childhood is meant for children to enjoy, grow and learn. This wasn’t the case for Anu though. Anu worked hard to put her brother through school by doing a job she had no interest in. Anu’s true passion was dancing, she loved dancing and wanted to become a dancer. One morning as she was getting ready for work, her best friend came running to her with a newpaper clipping in her hand. The newspaper clipping contained information about a job opening as a bar dancer at a 5 star hotel. Auditions for the job were to be held and Anu was ecstatic, she had a feeling all her dreams were finally going to come true. If anyone deserved to live their dreams, it was Anu. The day she had been waiting for had finally arrived and Anu reach the venue where the auditions were to be held. A true natural beauty, Anu had nothing to fear except the wardrobe choices. Western clothing in a time where girls barely showed any skin was an obstacle in Anu’s mind. She didn’t mind wearing those clothes but she was scared as she had never worn them before. “I walked onto the stage where the auditions were being held in western pants and a tight fitting top. I was so shy but I knew I looked good and I had full faith in the way I danced, so I just went for it.”

Anu dazzled everyone! Her dancing was a hit and she got her dream job. After this it was like the glitz and the glamour just took of for young Anu and she as getting payed well and had been featured in numerous newspapers. Anu was making a name for herself and was highly in demand. This would have been the perfect succsess story, even one for the movies but fame attracts a lot of jealousy. One such jealous soul was one of Anu’s clostest friends at the bar she danced at. Anu’s friend was a dancer herself and had started to grow jealous of all the attention Anu was getting. 

Once her friend couldn’t bare the jealousy anymore she threatened to throw acid on Anu’s face and destroy her career if she didn’t back off. A scared yet smart Anu knew better than to not take a threat when she saw one, she went straight to the police station and filed a complaint against the girl . The next day when Anu got to work, the police were there before questioning her friend, wanting to take her into custody. The bar owner convinced Anu and the girl to sort out their fight so that the cops didn’t have to get involved. Anu thought the situation was behind the when her friend apologized but she was wrong. A couple of months after the threat, Anu and her friend had established a relationship again. One day when Anu was leaving work she was approached by her friend and her brother. With no notice of any reaction, the man flung a cup full of acid on the beautiful and talented Anu. That’s the day Anu lost her eyes, her future and her superficial beauty forever. Anu was rushed to the hospital where she was greeted with more betrayal. The doctor that was supposed to be treating Anu, instead of taking the acid of her, started taking advantage of Anu’s situation. The acid had eaten through Anu’s clothes so her nude body was exposed the doctors perverted eyes. Anu sensed what was happening even with the immense pain she was under and pushed him off and screamed for help. Anu will never forget the things that happened to her but has moved on since the incident. The accused got a measely 5 years in jail and were let off. 5 years for ruining someones life, for taking away their vision and future. 5 years for an endless life of surgeries and pain. The government did nothing to help Anu even as she pleaded for help to numerous politicians. Everyone turned their backs on Anu and the only person that took care of her and sacrificed his own education was her younger brother who was only 13 at the time.

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What are we fundraising for?

Anu needs to undergo a few rounds of surgery. The first stage involves reconstructing her nose as she is not being able to breath properly. The construction will take a couple of rounds of surgeries to happen. The second stage involved the reconstruction of her eye lids and lashes so that Anu can walk around without her glasses freely and not be sujected to social stigma.

Image titleWhat do we plan to do with the funds?

The estimates for the funds are attached so you can have a look at exactly how your funds will be utilized. We have also increased the amount of funds needed as we want to make sure we can cover the charge from Milaaps end as well as our 2-5% admin fee


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Who we are and how we help-

Make Love Not Scars (https://www.facebook.com/makeluvnotscars?ref=hl)is a unique youth initiative to rehabilitate survivors of acid attacks and other forms of gender-based violence and discrimination and facilitate their integration with society. We are a group of energetic, passionate and committed youth who are keen to make a positive impact on our society through meaningful groundwork.

Leveraging social media for our first campaign, we created a Facebook page for acid attack survivor Rekha (https://www.facebook.com/rekha.acidattacksurvivor?ref=hl), which helped in raising close to USD 1,500 for Rekha. We donated the funds to a reputed private hospital in Bangalore, where Rekha is presently undergoing treatment. Later, we raised around USD 3,500 for Rekha through Indiegogo, and these funds are also being used for her treatment. Our campaign has also helped acid attack survivor Monica achieve her dream going to Parsons School for Design in New York, USA to study fashion designing. We have also helped acid attack fighter Deepmala with her medical treatment by raising Rs.1,067,300.

Through our website (http://makelovenotscars.org/), we plan to showcase survivors of gender-based violence from across India and even other countries through video-blogs, stories, short films and artwork. The website will be the face of our activities on the ground, which will include support for their treatment (including plastic surgery), support for justice through the judicial system and rehabilitation through employability training.

Reshma's campaign is the second (after Rekha's) in the series of immediate response campaigns that we will be doing for treatment and plastic surgery of survivors of acid attacks and other forms of gender violence. All our campaigns are transparently managed, regularly updating contributors about the total amount collected and details of expenses made.

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