Indian home décor brand, Pinklay, and youth-led gender equality initiative, The Red Elephant

Foundation have announced a collaboration in order to spread awareness on safety measures for children in the wake of child sexual abuse. Pinklay has created and curated a line of “red elephant” plush toys, which will be sold on their website along with informational handouts relating to child safety and strategies for children to stay safe.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau of India, the number of cases registered for child sexual abuse raised from 8,904 in the year 2014 to 14,913 in the year 2015, under the Protection of Children Against Sexual Offences Act, 2012. Oftentimes, children are vulnerable for the lack of information and strategies to handle such situations. With an emphasis on the concepts of safe and unsafe touches, body integrity and designating safe adults, the collaboration between Pinklay and The Red Elephant Foundation seeks to reach more children around the country to ensure their safety. Each plush toy sold under this collaboration will include four handouts on safe and unsafe touches, safe adults and body integrity for children.

Speaking about the collaboration, Daisy Tanwani, Founder, Pinklay, explained, “The awareness on child abuse is alarmingly low in our society, and cases of child abuse often go unreported due to the hesitation children face in disclosing abuse even to their loved ones.And, many times children are not even aware that they are being abused. The emotional damage that a child risks to go through is horrific, and we as a society stand to lose out on a lot.Bringing the issue to the forefront and initiating a dialogue is key to addressing it at all levels. Thanks to the vision of the Red Elephant Foundation, we are now one-step closer to achieving this. Our plush toys have always been bearer of happiness to kids and their folks alike, and I’m delighted they will now be a messenger to such an important mission.”

Adding to the altruistic motive behind the collaboration, Kirthi Jayakumar, Founder CEO of the Red Elephant Foundation says, “Child Sexual Abuse can leave a survivor severely affected - from PTSD to physical impacts, it is a horrible crime with a horrible impact. Awareness is key - essentially because this is the kind of wrongdoing that people get away with because they play on the fears of the child and force them into silence. This collaboration is an attempt to get more parents to find the resources they can use to converse with their children, and get them to be safer. We want children to know and look at the Red Elephants as safety signs that they can hold onto, to build open conversations with their parents.”

The line of Red Elephant plush toys will be available on Pinklay’s website and at select brick-and-mortar outlets across India.

About Pinklay:

Pinklay is an Indian home décor brand founded by Daisy Tanwani in 2015. It fuses traditional and modern designs in unexpected ways to create stunning home décor, furnishings, and fashion accessories. Pinklay’s designs are strongly rooted in color that is tasteful and authentic, and crafted to convey stories inspired from natural elements, and diverse crafts and cultures. The company currently offers the entire range of home décor and fashion accessories with over 500+ products spread across categories such as quilts, cushions, bedsheets, bedcovers, rugs, bath linen, table linen, infant and kids bedding, plush toys, tea lights, and centrepieces to name a few.

 For more information, visit pinklay.com.

About the Plush Toys:

Pinklay’sall-fabric plush toy range is strongly rooted in the local community with a strong desire towards giving back. The company has setup two women-only workshops that employ and empower women from underprivileged backgrounds to pursue an active career and a sustainable livelihood. The workshop trains women – from design to production – to create a vibrant collection that includes unicorn, giraffe, cat, dog, elephant, koala bears, owl, and mouse to name a few. Each plush toy is made in 100% pure cotton fabric and hygienic polyfillfibre stuffing.

About The Red Elephant Foundation:

The Red Elephant Foundation is an initiative that is built on the foundations of story-telling, civilian peacebuilding and activism for sensitisation on all drivers of peace - gender, race, nationality, colour and orientation. The initiative is titled "Red Elephant" to stand out as a vehicle that projects stories that must never be forgotten: stories that show you such courage that you should never forget, and stories that show the world such profound lessons that the world should never forget. In doing so, the initiative aims at creating awareness and opening up channels of communication towards creating societies of tolerance, peacebuilding and equality.

For more information, visit www.redelephantfoundation.org.