Tsunamika: The Little Doll Changing the World

"Fashion designer Uma Prajapati was sifting through emails at her office desk one sun-streaked afternoon in 2005, when a particular note caught her eye. It was from a young woman in Mumbai, India, who described her struggles with depression. At her lowest, she'd decided to end her life. The letter writer explained that as she was leaving her office for the last time, her eyes fell on a small scrap of a doll attached to a noticeboard. She paused to read the tag that accompanied it. The doll, it said, had been handmade by women from fishing communities who were rebuilding their lives after having lost everything during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. In her letter, the woman explained that she was so struck by the sorrow and suffering that those women had endured that it helped put her own worries in perspective. "My life belongs to this little doll," she wrote." That little doll was a tsunamika. First created in the wake of the devastating 2004 tsunami, today over 6 million of these tiny, living symbols of healing and hope have been gifted across the world. They continue to make a difference in quietly powerful ways. More in this interview with Uma Prajapati.

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