Safeena Husain of Educate Girls works with volunteers across Indian villages to find out-of-school girls, bring them back to school and to educate them. As an educated, successful woman, Safeena Husain visited a village, accompanied by her father. Because they were strangers in the village, the local residents were naturally curious. The local villagers asked Safeena’s father about his family. When her father explained that this was his only child, a daughter, the reaction shocked Safeena. “You poor thing,” they said. “Perhaps it is not too late for you. You can still try to have a son.” Safeena thought to herself, “If I am treated like this, what chance does the poor girl in the village have?” When a girl is educated, they have the potential to enter the formal economy, gain employment and lift their families out of poverty. Educate Girls works at the root cause of gender inequality in India's education system. They work with thousands of schools, reaching millions of children in some of India's most remote areas. Through their work, they have achieved over 90% enrollment and higher attendance for girls. They have also worked to improve school infrastructure, quality of education and learning outcomes for all girls. Social Entrepreneurship Quotes from Safeena Husain “We find every girl who is out of school. We make sure she is brought back to school, stays in school and is learning.” “To find the girls out of school, we go door-to-door.” “It’s not enough to have her in school. If she’s not learning, everything would be worthless.” “India has the highest number of out-of-school girls in the world.” “We have the highest number of child brides anywhere on the planet.” “And we also have the highest number of women or girls that are trafficked.” “The World Bank says that investing in a girl’s education is the best investment a country can make.” “For each additional year of schooling for a girl, family income goes up by 10% - 15%.” “Once she is educated, she is 500 times more likely to educate her children.” “These are not the rules. These are just the rules we have made.” “I thought I have to do something in girls’ education, because I found my pathway through education.” “They gave me a list of 26 critical gender gap districts.” “I learned from a lot of best practices in this sector.” “In terms of learning, we had an almost 30% better result than a regular government school, in our school.” “My job is to have a vision of success.” “It’s a mindset issue.” Social Entrepreneurship Resources: Educate Girls: http://educategirls.ngo Educate Girls on Twitter: https://twitter.com/educate_girls Safeena Husain on Twitter: https://twitter.com/safeenahusain Educate Girls on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/educategirls

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