Red Brigade Lucknow

Red Brigade Lucknow
Founded	2007
Founder	Usha Vishwakarma
Type	Non-governmental Organization
Focus	Womens Rights
Location	Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India
Area served	Northern India
Method	Self Defense Training
Website	red-brigades.blogspot.com

Red Brigade Lucknow is a non-governmental organization^[1] located in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India. The organization was founded by Usha Vishwakarma and focuses on empowering women through self defense education.^[2]

History

Usha Vishwakarma founded the Red Brigade after an attempted sexual assault by a coworker at the age of eighteen. During the attack, the loose uniform combined with her self-defense training allowed her to fight off the attacker, and lead to her adopting the loose black and red uniform, called the shalwar kameez that the Red Brigaders now wear. Vishwakarma decided that something needed to be done against the growing insecurity of women in India, so she founded the Red Brigade Lucknow group together with her partners at the Begunhai Foundation, in an effort to make the streets in her area safer.

Vishwakarma and the partners figured that when there are unsafe conditions in the streets, families keep their daughters from going to school as a way to avoid an attack. Vishwakarma, herself a teacher and founder of a small informal school called Balmanch, knew that they had to help young women safely reach their schools. Initially, the Red Brigade members took martials arts (wu shu, karate) lessons at a local studio called the Dragon Academy Dojo in Lucknow; however, as word spread of the group, several international teachers began to travel to instruct the group.

Media Coverage

Domestic(India)

Domestically, the Red Brigade Lucknow has received extensive media coverage in India^[3] including numerous television appearances, radio interviews and news coverage.

International

Internationally, the Red Brigade's story and mission has been translated into over twenty different language including articles in: Arabic,^[4] Bosnian,^[5] Chinese, Danish,^[6] English,^[7] French,^[8] German,^[9] Greek, Hindi,^[10] Indonesian,^[11] Italian,^[12] Japanese,^[13] Farsi,^[14] Portuguese, Romanian,^[15] Russian, Spanish,^[16] Swedish,^[17] Taiwan,^[18] Czech^[19] and Turkish.^[20]

Partnerships

Begunahi Foundation

The Red Brigade Lucknow is sponsored by The Begunahi Foundation, a nonprofit organization that focuses on sexual salvery and human trafficking in India.

Kuros!

In 2013, the Red Brigade partnered with Kuros! to become an official Kuros! partner in India. Kuros! is a conscious business based in Austin, Texas that partners with non-governmental organizations to provide pepper spray to women in developing countries around the world. Through their partnership with the Red Brigade, they provide and distribute pepper spray to women in Northern India who otherwise couldn't afford or have access to it for self defense. ^[21]