New Podcast Release: Safeena Husain

In the latest episode of Lives Well Lived, the podcast I co-host with Kasia de Lazari-Radek, we sit down with Safeena Husain.

In the latest episode of Lives Well Lived, the podcast I co-host with Kasia de Lazari-Radek, we sit down with Safeena Husain, the founder of the nonprofit Educate Girls, to discuss her extraordinary story of empowering girls through education.

Safeena shares her personal story of overcoming adversity, including a three-year interruption to her own education due to difficult circumstances in Delhi. She speaks about how a turning point in her life, guided by the support of a mentor, helped her change the trajectory of her future, eventually leading her, not only to complete high school, but to go on to graduate from the London School of Economics. This experience sparked her passion for education, and after a decade of working in nonprofit sectors across multiple countries, Safeena returned to India to found Educate Girls, an organization focused on providing education to marginalized girls in rural areas.

In this conversation, Safeena highlights the challenges of cultural and societal mindsets that regard girls as a burden, quoting an old Indian saying “A goat is an asset, a daughter is a liability.” That attitude often prevents girls from going to school. When girls are educated, on the other hand, this has a profound impact, transforming not just individual lives but entire communities. Safeena discusses how Educate Girls uses innovative approaches, such as grassroots mobilization and AI technology, to overcome barriers to education in rural India.

Safeena's work is driven by a deep belief in the power of education to break cycles of poverty and inequality. Her story is one of resilience and hope, as she and her team work to change the future for millions of girls, empowering them to lead lives of independence and opportunity.

Below are some highlights from our conversation, lightly edited for clarity. You can listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred platform.

On the importance of girls' education:

Safeena: "If we don't solve [this problem] for the 122 million girls not in school today, we are actually making it much worse for the girls who are to come. But if we flip this and make sure that all the girls are going to school, then they will stay in school. They will marry later. They'll be 40 per cent more likely to immunize their children—the whole cycle changes. And we know that women, when they are educated are 200 times more likely to educate their daughters. So what you will have is that you're not just solving for the girls today, but you're actually breaking that intergenerational cycle of illiteracy and poverty forever for the future generation. So absolutely the future, the next generation depends completely on what we do today.”

On changing cultural mindsets:

Kasia: Can we talk a bit about differences in sexes between male and female? Generally, in such cultures as yours, why is it easier for boys to be educated? Do they want to be educated?

Safeena: The boys have a different kind of pressure on them. They're supposed to be running the house and they're supposed to be providing for the family, et cetera. When it comes to girls’ education, I often hear things like educating your daughter is like watering your neighbour's garden. Why would you do that? Why would you go off and water your neighbour's garden? But educating a son is like watering your own garden, right? Because that is what is going to give me fruit in my old age. And he's supposed to look after me. So there's a lot of those mindsets that are there. It's a patriarchal mindset.

Impact of their work:

Safeena: "Shobha is somebody we had enrolled back in school, in 2010 or 2012, somewhere there. And I remember meeting her then and I asked her, are you going to school? And she said, ‘Yeah, I go to school,’ and then we went to the register of the school, and her name wasn't there. So I was a little confused. I was like, the child is saying she goes to school. So I asked her to describe to me, how do you go to school. And she's like, ‘Whenever my brothers go, I go with them to school’. So she was actually just going walking to school with them. And then they would go inside and study, and she would come back, and she assumed that is what going to school really is. She wasn't actually registered in the classroom. And I remember we had to do a lot of work with her father, Dinesh because he was sending all his sons. He wasn't sending his daughters and it had taken a long time to convince him and then finally, we ran a residential bridge course where we got a lot of girls like Shobha. For three months, we helped them study and bridge all their learning gaps, and when he built a little bit of trust with us, then he enrolled her into school. I think fourth grade, if I remember correctly, and I went back to meet him. Now Shobha is married, she has her family, she's working, and she's earning, and she and her husband live in a different village. It was just gorgeous to see this woman, but it was even better to see her father because he gave me a lecture on how important girls education is. And he said this line to me, he said, 'The world is built for the educated, and if you're not educated, you will be exploited like animals.'”

On the role of local champions:

Safeena: "We find champions, and educated, young, educated, passionate individuals from the same villages who understand the value of education because they have had an education. And then we train them, build their capacity, and they become our gender champions.”

On her life's purpose:

Safeena: "I feel like my life, I'm really happy with because I get to live it with purpose. And with a mission. I cannot imagine my life without this purpose that gets me up every morning. There's so much joy to going to work and there's so much joy in problem-solving, and I feel this sense of satisfaction every time I see girls who have now gone through an education. I just went back and meet girls that we had enrolled like 10 years back, and I see how their lives have shaped up. and that just makes you feel like, okay, that's good, to be able to see that progression in somebody else's life. And I hope that I always have that mission and that passion, when you don't feel burnt out, you don't feel like, Oh, my God, I have to go do my job and file a report or whatever. Every single day is about the meeting of your own personal values and, the task at hand. I think it's a gift.”