When I think of SHE and what it has become, I think of my father first, Dr Prem Sethi. He did not start SHE because it was fashionable. He did not launch it because safety had suddenly become a talking point. He created it because he believed something very simple and very powerful. He believed every woman should feel safe wherever SHE stands.
Thus, SHE has always been more than a program for me. It is a legacy, a belief, and a promise I inherited from my father. He believed safety was not a rule. It was dignity, confidence and the right to live without fear. Long before these ideas became part of mainstream conversations, he travelled to Delhi to study the emerging laws on gender safety, including the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act. He wanted to bring this knowledge to Pune at a time when very few people even knew such training existed.
In 2017, he launched SHE as a quiet but determined program inside Odser. It was not a large initiative yet. It did not have modules or pillars or frameworks. It had something much stronger. It had intention. His intention. An intention rooted in decades of listening to women, teaching young people, working with families, and understanding how silence often hides pain. He believed safety was not a rule. It was dignity. It was culture. It was the right to move through the world without fear.
On 8 March 2019, everything changed.
It was International Women’s Day.
He had three speeches scheduled that day on gender safety and dignity.
He had prepared his words, ironed his clothes and was ready to leave home.
He never made it.
We lost him that morning.
A day meant to celebrate women, a day he was so passionate about, became the day the world lost a man who spent his life fighting for their safety and respect. The grief was overwhelming. The silence in our home felt enormous.
And yet, somewhere beneath the heartbreak, a quiet clarity took shape.
If I was going to step into his role and lead Odser, I had to honour the work he began. I had to carry forward the belief he lived for. SHE could not remain a small seed. It needed to grow into the powerful, structured vertical he had always envisioned. So in the months that followed, we began building SHE with intention and respect. Not to replace what he created, but to strengthen it. To give it pillars, systems, training pathways and the capacity to reach every child, every adolescent, every teacher and every workplace that needed support.
We met schools where girls walked in silence, unsure of their rights.
We spoke with college youth who struggled to understand boundaries and consent.
We trained workplaces that wanted to create safer cultures but lacked the tools.
We listened to parents who carried fears they had never spoken aloud.
Every conversation shaped the vertical.
Every session carried his voice.
Every child who learned about safety carried his legacy.
From his belief, SHE became a complete ecosystem.
From a seed, it became a shelter.
From a vision, it became a movement.
Today, when I watch a nine year old confidently name the difference between safe and unsafe behaviour, I think of him. When a young woman learns how to respond to a workplace situation without fear, I think of him. When a corporate team understands dignity with new clarity, I think of him.
He wanted the world to be safer for women.
He wanted youth to grow into responsible adults.
He wanted institutions to rise above compliance and become places of dignity.
SHE is his unfinished speech.
SHE is the promise he never got to deliver on 8 March 2019.
SHE is the message he wanted the world to hear.
I am proud to carry it forward.
Today, as I sit preparing for the Dubai conference, I keep thinking of him. Dubai was a platform he proudly stood on in 2018, and now I will stand there too. Not just as his daughter, and not just as the President of Odser, but as someone carrying forward the work he began. Writing this origin story for SHE feels less like documentation and more like a conversation with him. As I pack my notes and review my presentation, I realise that I am taking his dream with me. His belief in safety. His belief in dignity. His belief in women. And in many ways, SHE is my way of keeping his voice alive on a stage he once loved.
So if you believe in this promise as deeply as he did, I invite you to support SHE. Your contribution allows this work to reach more children, more adolescents, more women and more workplaces where safety should never be optional. Together, we can turn his belief into a global movement. And together, we can make safety a lived reality, not a distant hope.
Leave a Reply