Indian actress and United for Human Rights Ambassador, Sheena Chohan has been given the President’s Lifetime Achievement Award, hand-signed by President Biden, for spreading awareness of basic rights and equality to 170 million people in South Asia.
The President’s Volunteer Service Award is an award bestowed by the President of the United States of America to honor volunteers that give hundreds of hours per year helping others. As South Asia Ambassador for United for Human Rights, Sheena used her position as an actress to spread education in basic rights like Don’t Discriminate, The Right to Education, Social Security, No Torture and more, to millions of people. She teamed up with stars like Preety Zinta, Sonakshi Sinha, RaveenaTandon, Sonu Sood, Imtiaz Ali and more on her podcast Born Free and Equal to give people basic information and motivating stories about their rights from the Indian Constitution and United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights.
Sheena, who comes up as number one on Google if you type “Indian Actor Human Rights”, was the first and only choice in India of the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights – the world’s senior-most authority on human rights – Mr. Volker Türk, whose office at the United Nations reached out to Sheena to ask for help to promote 75 years of the UN’s Universal Declaration on Human Rights.
Sheena had previously been given the Human Rights Hero Award at the United Nations in New York, by Dr. Mary Shuttleworth, Founder of United for Human Rights. Sheena used the stage at the United Nations to call for mandatory human rights education in all schools in India.
Sheena says:
“I’m so grateful to Mr. Christopher King, President of United for Human Rights, Florida, not only for putting me forward for this award, but for his constant work to end child-trafficking and bring human rights awareness.
India has one of the world’s most admired constitutions – it holds all the power we need to create the India we dream of – a decent society where we have peace, equality and there’s no exploitation. The rights in the constitution, which the Fathers of India fought so hard for, are the basis of all law in our nation, so there is no higher power, but to use that power you first have to know what it is. The Constitution covers Indian’s rights to equality, against discrimination, education for all, social security, worker’s rights, no torture (domestic violence), no slavery (child rights) – it covers it all. But we as citizens have a duty to know our rights and responsibilities, and not just to be able to repeat what we’ve learned in a class – but to use a dictionary to look up the unusual words and really understand what we’re reading.
These rights are the most important thing you’ll ever learn, because they form the agreements for all behaviour in our great country, which is why I’m using my acceptance speech for my President’s Lifetime Achievement Award to again call for mandatory human rights education in all schools in India.”
As well as her podcast and live human rights events with stars like Preety Zinta, Guneet Monga and Imtiaz Ali, Sheena has given presentations of human rights information from the 30 Hollywood produced films at humanrights.com to thousands of school and university students. She’s also given free human rights curriculums to over 100 educational institutions, and she encourages every school in India to visit humanrights.com and request their free education kit to make sure human rights are a part of their curriculum.
Sheena’s podcast, which spread awareness of basic rights and equality to over 100 million people in India during the COVID lockdown, gave out basic information about human rights including how the information can help in day-to-day life, what the main human rights issues are and motivating stories from celebrities to study and use their rights. Each artists took up a different right – Sonakshi Sinha discussed The Right to Education, Sonu Sood discussed the Right to Food and Shelter, SanjanaSanji talked on The Right to Play and Imtiaz Ali looked at The Freedom of Speech. Then Sheena put on live events, like one that focused on Women’s Rights with Preety Zinta, Guneet Monga and Rohini Iyer, which took up the subjects of safety, equality and respect, concentrating on how the Constitution gives women protection in each of these areas.
Sheena, who has over 750,000 followers on social media, gained the platform she’s used for human rights, as an award-winning actress. After five years in theatre Sheena was launched as the lead female role in an action film alongside Malayalam megastar Mammootty, directed by seven-time National Award Winner Jayaraj. Sheena went on to play the lead in 7 films, 3 with National Award Winning Directors and wasnominated as Best Actress at the Dubai and Shanghai Film Festivals for her role in Ant Story, which was bought by Netflix. Sheena had roles in The Fame Game, alongside Madhuri Dixit, The Trial, alongside Kajoland plays the lead female role in her Hindi feature Bollywood debut alongside Subodh Bhave in the greatly anticipated Hindi historical drama Sant Tukaram, directed by Aditya Om. Sheena’s film, Amar Prem, was launched last week by the Joint Secretary for Broadcasting of India, Mr. Sanjiv Shankar, in the official Indian Pavilion at the world’s most prestigious film festival – Cannes.
Currently Sheena is using her platform in America, where she filmed her Sci-Fi Hollywood film Nomad, which is soon to release, to shoot a human rights series with American artists, celebrities and thought leaders, called East Meets West on Human Rights, which has the hashtag #EastWestHumanRights.
