Every child can be ambassador for change: Sheena Chohan

Kolkata (IANS) – Actress Sheena Chohan of “Ant Story” fame has been vouching for the inclusion of human rights education in schools to make every child an agent for change.

Chohan joined hands with the Youth for Human Rights International, a non-profit organization, to teach the youths about human rights. She endorses the inclusion of United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights — a historic document on human rights — as a school subject.

“If we can educate every child about human rights, they too can be ambassadors for change,” she said.

Chohan’s focus is on human rights abuses, including discrimination, sexual abuse, domestic violence, child labour, girls being denied education and infanticide.

“While in school, I saw many violations of human rights around me. I saw many women being denied the right to work, the right to education, the right to freedom of expression and the right to life.

“The worst was that newborns were killed, only because they were girls. These situations gave me a purpose to do something to change this climate of human rights abuse,” Chohan told IANS over email before flying off to New York for the 16th annual International Human Rights Summit to be held on June 27-29.

On work front, Chohan had bagged a role in national-award winning director Buddhadeb Dasgupta’s shorts films — “Mukti” and “Patralekha” — based on Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s work.

The former Miss Kolkata, who made her acting debut with the Malayalam film “The Train”, co-starring superstar Mammootty in 2011, wrapped up the short film “Taken for a Ride”, directed and written by Fraser Scott.

She was nominated for the best actress award at the Dubai and Shanghai International Film Festival for Mostofa Sarwar Farooki’s “Ant Story” which recently streamed on Netflix.