A second chance

Husain, whose Educate Girls became the first Indian NGO to win the Ramon Magsaysay Award, tells Ranjita Ganesan how an education system designed with girls in mind actually works better for everyone

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Safeena Husain and her two daughters were on a road trip in Uttar Pradesh some years ago, passing through Chitrakoot, Sonbhadra, Robertsganj, all the way up to Kushinagar near Nepal. It was more a lockdown mission than family vacation. ‘The pandemic was forcing girls out of schools and Husain’s NGO, Educate Girls, wanted to ensure they returned tothe classroom.

Amid teaching out of tribal homes and fixing families up with steady rations, Husain had to tackle a new emergency. Her younger one, Rihanna, fell ill ina particularly remote area. “So I took her to the only place I could find. A pashu pakshi kendra (animal, bird centre).” She chuckles, recalling the veterinary staff's astonishment: “They were expectingsome cattle, a goat, or at least a chicken. Not my teen.”

Husain, 54, knows how to make lemonade from life’s lemons. Lemonade, incidentally, is also the only thing she calls for at Pondichery Cafe, where we meet for our interview. It is one week after Educate Girls — which she set up 18 years ago — was declared the first organisation from India to ever win the Ramon Magsaysay Award. The last few days have been hectic, but she agrees to lunch at the buzzing lobby restaurant in Mumbai’s Sofitel Hotel. Though not feeling well enough to eat, she never wastes a chance to discuss the nonprofit.

Tlinger over my plate of vegetable salad, and catch glimpses of some traits that likely help her mobilise 55,000 volunteers at the grassroots and bring two million rural girls back on the education track. Commitment, zest, ease, humour.