Ashri Anurudran graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard College with a concentration in Economics and a secondary focus in Global Health and Human Rights. Having grown up in London, Kuala Lumpur and Houston, Ashri has witnessed the prevalence of sexual violence within vastly different societies. She hopes to introduce preventative norms early enough to create a generation of powerful, confident and informed citizens with the tools to fight sexual violence. In the past, Ashri has founded and taught two school-based educational intervention programs for 12-14-year-olds that aim to change norms surrounding sexual violence in India and Kenya. The programs incorporate self-defense, confidence building, public speaking, female hygiene, human rights, and career-building. In Kisumu, working in partnership with the Kisumu Medical Education Trust, she expanded this curriculum to introduce a segment for boys that focused on bystander intervention techniques, empathy development, hero ideals, and gender equality. As a Cheng Fellow, Ashri furthered empirical research in this space by conducting a randomized control trial of 1200 students to evaluate the impacts of this intervention in changing knowledge and gender attitudes. As of January 2020, the training has reached 8 primary schools in Kisumu, Kenya. Currently, Ashri is pursuing a Masters in Public Health at Cambridge University and hopes to continue the implementation and empirical research of sexual violence prevention in Kenya.
Ashri Anurudran presenting at the 2019 Social Innovator Showcase: