Wednesday, April 9, 2014
Are Communities the Problem or the Solution for Girls’ Education?
Session Description
There are deep-rooted, community-induced societal barriers to girls’ education. Persistently working with the entire community helps instill a favorable perception shift toward girls’ education. If communities have been the biggest impediment to development, can we flip the scenario, use the same communities, and make them the drivers of development?
When | Where
11:45 - 13:00
Wednesday, April 9
SBS, Seminar 10
Session leaders
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Safeena Husain is the Founder and Executive Director at Educate Girls – a non-profit organisation that aims at tackling issues at the root cause of gender inequality in India’s education system.
After graduating from the London School of Economics, Safeena spent 15 years working with grassroots projects in Ecuador, Mexico, Bolivia, South Africa & Asia. In India, Safeena chose the agenda closest to her heart – girls’ education. Safeena together with a local team, conducted a 50- school project in Pali district, Rajasthan. Post its successful test phase, Safeena established Educate Girls as an NGO in 2007. With focus on enrollment, retention and learning, in the last eight years, Educate Girls has metamorphosed into an 8,000 schools program with over 2.8 million total beneficiaries of its programmatic interventions.
Safeena’s efforts to bridge the gender gap in education in India have been widely recognized. Under her leadership, Educate Girls has received the prestigious 2015 Skoll Award, 2014 WISE Award, the 2014 USAID Millennium Alliance Award and the 2014 Stars Impact Award and the India Development Marketplace Award in 2011 from the World Bank. Moreover, in 2013, she received the British Asian Trust’s Special Recognition Award from HRH Prince Charles for outstanding contribution in education.
