Educate Girls’ Founder and Board Member Safeena Husain has unremittingly worked for the past 15 years towards achieving an integrated solution that can bring girls back to school. In this series of short essays, she shares the challenges and experiences through a gender lens augmented with her lived experience as a social entrepreneur building a…
TWINS CHALLENGE FATE AND MOVE TOWARDS AN EMPOWERED FUTURE
15-year-old twins Kavita* and Bhumika* live in a remote village in Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh. They both loved being around each other and went to the village government school regularly. However, they not only shared the same birth date but also the same fate. When they completed Grade 5, their family made them drop…
SARA’S SISTERS BENEFIT FROM HER ENROLLMENT IN SCHOOL!
Despite being 10 years old, Sara* was never enrolled in school because her parents never valued education. She lives with her family in a small village in the Sirohi district of Rajasthan. Being the eldest of three children, she was burdened with the responsibilities of household chores and taking care of her siblings. She has…
GIRLS’ EDUCATION MIGHT JUST SAVE THE PLANET!
As parts of India are gripped in an extreme heatwave, I am reminded of the alarming statistic by Care International: ‘Women are 14 times more likely to die in climate related disasters than men[1] – a staggering fact that illustrates how the poorest women and girls, who contribute the least to the climate crisis, bear…
MANU DREAMS BIG
One of the major highlights of this village in the Udaipur district of Rajasthan is the presence of a primary school. Surrounded by the Aravalli range, reaching here requires facing the narrow and unpaved roads. Living in one of the scattered household is the 9-year old Manu Kumari*. Manu has always been confined to her…
TEAM BALIKA DEVI RISES ABOVE HER CIRCUMSTANCES
Devi Kumari has had a tough life. Growing up among 5 siblings in a village in Rajasthan, her family often faced scarcity of food. Her parents are labourers but always gave them hope for a better future with education, a future where their children could have meals on their plates, round the clock. Unfortunately, life…
GEETA, ENROLLED IN 2014 BY EDUCATE GIRLS IS NOW A TEAM BALIKA VOLUNTEER
This story sets an example of how education can change the mindset of people and how Educate Girls is working as a catalyst to change. Geeta, who was enrolled in school in 2014 because of efforts of Educate Girls’ team is now working as Team Balika (village-based volunteer)! Sohan Lal Meena, a farmer and resident…
DINESH INCREASES INCOME FROM FARM HARVEST!
Dinesh lives in a village, situated in the hilly region in of Dhar district in Madhya Pradesh. He lives here with his wife and parents. Belonging to a family of farmers, and seeing struggle and hardships, he always had a bent for social service. Every day for three years, Dinesh taught adults aged 18-65 years…
WHERE THERE’S A WILL, THERE’S A WAY
“When I was preparing for my Grade 10 examination, my little sister came running to me and started crying. She told me how a bank employee had humiliated my mother and sister for not being able to fill a form due to being uneducated. This incident remained with me and that day I decided that…