India's Safeena Hussain wins $5 lakh WISE Prize for getting 14 lakh girls back to school
Safeena Hussain, founder of 'Educate Girls,' has become the first Indian woman to bag the WISE Prize worth 5 lakh USD for mobilising 14 lakh out of school girls in Indian villages to get back to mainstream education. The prize, awarded by the Qatar Foundation at the 11th Edition of the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) Summit earlier this week in Doha, is one of the most prestigious awards in education.
«Sixteen years back, when 'Beti Bachao Beti Padhao' was unheard of, I had decided to set up Educate Girls, an NGO to bring out of school girls back to mainstream education. Even in the 21st century, there are villages in India where goats are considered assets but girls are considered liability,» Safeena told PTI in an interview.
«From poverty to patriarchy, there are endless reasons to keep girls out of school or forcing them to drop out without completing their education,» Safeena said.
«I realised the importance of the subject when I was forced to take a three-year break from my studies due to difficult circumstances at home.
Fresh out of school, I had resigned to the fate of staying at home,» she said.
Safeena's fate took a turn when three years later one of her aunts took it upon herself to get her back to studies, ultimately helping her land a seat at London School of Economics.
«I then decided that I had to play the same role for girls like me.»
Family apathy, lack of motivation, and reluctance from the girls themselves, were the major roadblocks Safeena had to face when she started the mission to educate girls in rural Rajasthan, which has now expanded to Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh.
Daughter of noted character actor Yusuf Husain, who recently died, and wife to filmmaker Hansal Mehta,
