FIRST MAN AS UN WOMEN AMBASSADOR

The man known as Farhan Akhtar (born 9 January 1974) is a renowned Indian film actor, film director, screenwriter, producer, playback singer, lyricist and also a television host. Farhan was born in Mumbai in the arm of Javed Akhtar and Honey Irani, whom are famous for screenwriting as well. Since he was raised under the influence of Hindi film industry, sensibly, he stepped he took his first step in his career by working as an assistant director in Lamhe (1991) and Himalay Putra (1997).

Not only Farhan is well accomplished by the work he has done, he is well respected as well as an actor-filmmaker-singer. Not only did Farhan had made his presence in the Indian film industry with his all-around roles, he had also represented the voice of thousands of distressed men and women in the important issue of gender equality and violence against women and girls in India.

In order to stop violence against women, Farhan started a campaign known as Men Against Rape and Discrimination (MARD). The campaign was launched in 2013 and its aim was to raise social awareness against rape and discrimination of women. There were two critical incidents that took place in India which ignited this campaign to be formed. One of the incident was when a 23 year old, Jyoti Singh was gang raped by six men, beaten and tortured in a  private bus in which she was travelling with one of her friend. Her friend only had to suffer through the torment. Secondly, the incident in August 2012 when Pallavi Purkayastha, known as a Mumbai Lawyer, viciously murdered by her watchmen just because she tried to protect herself from getting raped by her watchmen. These two incidents jointly ignited Farhan Akhtar, which resulted him to launch a campaign in the hope of stopping such incidents and give the women the respect they deserve.

Fortunately, Farhan Akhtar didn’t have to overcome adversity and challenges because there were men and women that certainly needed some changes in the city and believed Farhan was the right person to take the action. According to the Times of India, “MARD has been asking men to rethink their value system. To think about what are the various characteristics and traits that makes one a man.” As soon the campaign was launched, it alerted individuals and became a well-known trending topic on different social networking sites such as: Twitter and Facebook. Such initiative turned around to be positive reactions from world known Bollywood stars such as: Shahrukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Hrithik Roshan and etc. This kind of support gave the campaign respect and prospered it to flourish and to make a change.

Since Farhan's campaign was now known worldwide, the United Nations has reached out and invited Farhan to join their campaign as to be the Goodwill Ambassador of South Asia. Farhan was chosen to be the first man as the Goodwill Ambassador in the United Nation’s history. The campaign, “HeForShe” calls for men and boys to raise awareness and stand up against the inequalities which are constantly being faced by women.   

SOURCES:

• "Farhan Akhtar Announced as UN Women's Goodwill Ambassador for South Asia." Headquarters. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2016.

• "Farhan Akhtar Becomes the Goodwill Brand Ambassador for UN's Initiative HeForShe." http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/. Times of India, n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2016.

• "Nirbhaya Bus Rapist Blames His Victim." Newsindiaexpress. News India, n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2016.

• "Farhan Akhtar." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 20 Mar. 2016.