About me

When I was a child at primary school, we played a game where we used the first letter of our name to describe us; the word 'adventurous' was often assigned to me by my peers.

My name is Alanna, and ever since then I have desired to live up to this word.

ad·ven·tur·ous/adˈvenCHərəs/

willing to take risks or to try out new methods, ideas, or experiences

As a young human I explored the paddocks that surrounded our small country home in Waikanae, exploring small stands of trees, and dreaming of all the places I would go, the adventures my life might take me, and secretly I wished for fairies to exist to take me to their hidden lands behind the door at the foot of a tree.

I have always been a dreamer; adventures, distant shores, and foreign people stream through my mind, and words I find easiest to write, or not express at all, remain buzzing through this head of mine. Yet more recently it is the places my heart has been yearning after that are taking me on the adventures I only dreamed of as a child.

I followed that desire here to Kolkata, where my heart has brought me. God placed a special role in my life, and after years of knowing that this country I am currently living in was going to be a destination of mine at some point, I am fulfilling part of that. When I was in a social science class at college, we watched a video about some of the inhumane ways women are treated in India; the image of a woman covered head to foot in fresh burns, skin hanging from her like tatty clothes, screaming screaming screaming, came onto the screen. Having poured gasoline over her body and lighting herself in flames because she had been sexually abused by a man that was not her husband - she had been labelled 'adulterer', shunned by her husband and his family.
It was this, that to this day continues to release a surge of emotions at this injustice, that first signalled a calling to India for me.

I knew that there was something I must do. I new a risk would need to be taken, and I was willing.
6 years later I found myself settling into a long-haul flight to Kolkata via Dubai, having said goodbye to everything I knew, everyone I loved, and everything that was 'comfortable' for a year. I put my studies in Textiles for Fashion on hold, and allowed the Boeing-777 aeroplane to carry me to far and distant lands where my greatest adventure and sacrifice yet, was to take place.

In Kolkata I am working for a bags + apparel business called Freeset, were I am their Production Designer. I have the absolute priviledge of working alongside some of the most incredible human beings I have ever encountered - women who have been sold, trafficked, and abused, by a cruel market of sex-working, just one hundred metres from where I am sitting in my flat I share with 6 other international missionaries. What is incredible about these women is that despite the hurt, abuse, and advantages taken of them, they continue to embrace me as a friend and sister, envelop me in warmth with a smile upon their beautiful faces, and support one another in this road to freedom.

This is my adventure.

And I am blessed to be on it.