Going places: Achiever Shweta Katti

Newsweek magazine named Shweta one of "25 Under-25 Young Women To Watch” for good reason. Being brought up in Mumbai's biggest red-light area, Kamathipura, did not discourage Shweta from dreaming big.

Her mother was forced to move out of her village in Karnataka because of poverty. During her childhood, Shweta and her mother lived above a brothel, tolerating an alcoholic and abusive stepfather.

Today, this 19-year-old has not only completed her graduate education, she is poised to study psychology in New York so that she can return to Kamathipura to help women overcome the trauma of sexual abuse.

She has received full tuition scholarship from Bard College, New York. A group of well-wishers are helping her raise the funds for her living expenses. Hers is indeed a story of grit and survival.