Unlikely Heroes Help Prevent Social Injustice~ By Julia McEllen

          In class this year so far, we have spent a lot of time talking about heroes. Whether they are likely heroes from Greek tragedies or unlikely heroes in our everyday lives, heroes are all around us. Not only have we studied the nature of heroes, but we have also just recently talked about social injustice in society. While reflecting on our lessons both about heroes and social injustice I realized there is an underlying theme that connects both topics, which is that heroes are put on their heroic paths to help solve a problem which is mostly always to prevent some sort of injustice in the world. Because a majority of our focus in class was learning about likely heroes mainly in Greek tragedies, I have decided to research a few unlikely heroes and their unique paths to preventing social injustice. 

          The first unlikely hero I found is Pushpa Basnet. Basnet graduated college with a degree in Social Work and focused her degree on children in need. After visiting a female prison as part of a college assignment, Basnet noticed many children living behind bars with their mothers. In an attempt to give these children more comfortable and opportunity-filled lives, Basnet raised money to start a non-profit named The Early Childhood Development Center. This non-profit provided food, clothing, daycare, schooling, and medical support for the children. Basnet also helped the incarcerated mothers and taught them how to generate an income in order to support their children. Although Basnet was not required in any way to start this non-profit for the benefit of others, she saw a problem with the way these children and mothers were living and where their lives could end up in the future and decided to help them, proving her to be an unlikely hero.

          Another unlikely hero that I had the pleasure of meeting is Dali Schonfelder. Every year when she was younger, Dali's parents took her and her brother to India, in Mumbai. One year, Dali noticed that her friends from the previous years were not there. Dali soon figured out that this was because of the government in India which removed students from school if they could not afford a school uniform. At the age of thirteen, Dali found this to be a very upsetting problem as she realized that many of her friends who were the same age would soon be forced into marriage because of their lack of education. Immediately she knew she had to find a way to prevent this from happening to any more children. Dali and her brother founded a clothing line called Nalu, which gives a uniform to a child after every 4 products sold. With the help of her company, Dali has donated over 8,000 uniforms to children all across India, Kenya, and Indonesia, with more uniforms to come. That means she has helped over 8,000 children receive an education they might not have received if it were not for Nalu. You could say Dali is a very remarkable modern day hero for only being thirteen when she created Nalu, which has remained a successful and growing business to this day. Dali saw injustice happening not only to children in India but to her friends, and acted solely on selflessness to help prevent the problem at hand, making her an extraordinary and unlikely modern day hero.

          As we have been taught in class this year, there are many examples of modern day heroes and lots of social injustice that needs to be fixed in society. Dali and Pushpa are just two examples of the many heroes that are out in our world, but their acts of kindness and selfless deeds are more than just a start to preventing the social injustice that is experienced in society. With the help of more people like Dali and Pushpa we might be able to uncover many more unlikely heroes that will help prevent issues similar to these. And maybe then will we finally see less and less injustice and more peace on our earth.