There was a memorable meeting with a 'tall, elegant, beautiful girl', who had recently finished her 12th in the strongly tribal Jhabua district, Madhya Pradesh.
'I was shocked. In this whole sea of villages, I knew for sure there was no other 12th pass girl. I said I want to meet your father.'
'She brought her father, a daily-wage labourer. I asked him: "How come you decided to educate your girl till the 12th standard? You break stones for a living and you don't have a lot of money".'
'He just said one line and in that one line he said everything.'
For over 16 years little Indian village girls have had a faithful, rock-solid protector and guardian in Dr Safeena Husain.
In 2007, Safeena took on, with great grit and determination, the job of making sure girls, in the most under-served parts of the country, got an education when she established Educate Girls.
In Part I of her interview she explains how her own personal experience coloured the decision to be that defender, when she realised how education entirely changed her life journey.
Safeena has crisscrossed those areas of India trying to understand the issues that prevent parents from sending girls to school or that result in them being left behind and in Part II of her interview to Rediff.com's Vaihayasi Pande Daniel and Rajesh Karkera she relates what she discovered.
- Part 1 of the Interview: She Helps Girls Get Education
Missed Call, Antim Bala...
In many places in the country's heartland, girls are terribly neglected and no attention is given to their education, because women are only focused on having sons and bringing them up. Unfortunately, a wife/daughter-in-law's worth is yet judged -- in 21st century scientific India -- by her ability to have a son/s.
The birth of a girl is still a sad day in dark parts of an India where social justices do not prevail.
Safeena on just how utterly shocking the situation can be:
RTE Is Excellent, We Need More!
An out-of-school female child, Safeena explains, usually has a certain type of profile, wherever she may be in India, with factors like poverty and imbalance of gender power holding her back.
It's a great, great struggle for young girls to enroll (in spite of the Right to Education Act guaranteeing there are adequately equipped, safe primary schools, offering education between the ages of six and 14, in everyone's reach).
Before this Act came into being, in 2009, the problems that had to be solved by Safeena, and her organisation, were considerably more formidable -- it was about parents being comfortable that schools had boundary walls and toilets for girls (40 per cent did not) or about the distances girls had to travel for lessons, sometimes climbing high hills and trudging many kilometres through wild jungles twice a day. Safeena recalls: "It was an uphill battle convincing people to build a toilet for girls. They'd be like, 'They don't have it in their houses also'. What does that matter!?"
The RTE has seen to it, according to the stats she quotes offhand, that out-of-school numbers have shrunk dramatically.
But after a girl is enrolled, the next and far loftier challenge is to deal with the numerous road blocks that prevent her from zooming ahead in life, and later too may take her out of school or off the education path.
Educate Girls, that works with the Government of India, has devised several platforms/road maps using digital tools and an analytical database, to help girls at all ages/junctures -- Pragati, a 'second-chance programme for adolescent girls and young women; aproximately 23,000 Team Balikas, an army of youth champions, who advocate for girls' education at a village level; learning support; remedial camps and courses; steps to reduce the digital access gender gap and provide survival skills; going door-to-door, knocking on the darwazas of millions of households since inception, looking for girls to aid.
Safeena Husain on the profile of an out-of-school girl:
Shobha's Story
Apart from insuring that the physical structure of a village school, with appropriate facilities, exists or gets built, within an accessible distance for girls all over, RTE -- as well as time, increased awareness/exposure, and, of course, the sterling work of the government and NGOs, specially by Safeena's Educate Girls -- has slowly but miraculously brought about an attitudinal change too, because as Safeena says it's simply a mindset obstacle, that can be solved if all of India believed that "our sons and daughters are equal."
But to illustrate how much ways of thinking are improving, Safeena tells the story of Shobha:
The success with Shobha and her father is one of countless rewarding, poignant moments that this terrain of work brings.
Says Safeena, "All of that joy comes from the girls themselves. And in the field."
Not long ago, she was visiting a camp of older girls, outside Jodhpur, where she met a mother who had enrolled herself with her daughter to do her 10th class. The mom told Safeena determinedly: 'Woh karegi, mein bhi karungi (She will do, I will do)'.
"When I was leaving, she held my hand and said 'Pass karna mujhe, meri bachi ko aage barhna hai (Pass us. My daughter must move ahead)'. It's just that desire (that touches you)."
Or there was a memorable meeting with a "tall, elegant, beautiful girl," who had recently finished her 12th in the strongly tribal Jhabua district, Madhya Pradesh, where Safeena had covered around 100 villages.
"I was shocked. In this whole sea of villages, I knew for sure there was no other 12th pass girl. How (on earth) was she a 12th pass? I said I want to meet your father."
"She brought her father, a daily-wage labourer. He came in just this little lungi and was sitting on his haunches, on the side of the road.
"I asked him: 'How come you decided to educate your girl till the 12th standard? You break stones for a living and you don't have a lot of money. Nobody around you is sending their daughter. You would have heard 20 things from them. It must have been hard for you'.
"He just said one line: 'Yeh patthar nahin todegi' and in that one line he said everything (implying) that 'she is not going to have a life that is like mine. She will have a better life'.
"That man was so profound in his thinking that he went against the grain of all the villagers and all the fathers around him, to say "Yeh patthar nahin todegi (She will not break stones, which is what he did for a living)'. He knew the path to that was through education. It's experiences like this that really inspire you in a way that is so motivating."
Going up on stage to receive the scroll that contained her doctorate in London at the Shaw Library at the London School of Economics campus, from the school's vice-chancellor, in May was also equally gratifying, fulfilling, energising too.
"Overwhelming" is the word she chooses: "My aunt was in the audience. For the first part of the speech, I think we were weeping buckets. She was sitting in the front and crying, her daughter was crying, my daughters were crying, and I was crying. Then I couldn't read any words on the piece of paper that I had carried with me. It was overwhelming. Just very emotional... very emotional. I feel like that's when the trajectory of my life changed, going to LSE. So, to come back to receive that honour was really truly special."
It was Mahe Hassan who lent a hand and put Safeena on her track to success that's bringing dividends to a vast, hopeful population of betis around the country.
Her husband Hansal -- who she met in San Francisco in 2005 and theirs has been a lovely, heart-warming katha or gaatha of partnership -- took the baton from Mahe, and stands behind her, or rather side-by-side with Safeena, assisting her, when he can, in translating her ideals to reality and has always said, "Her vision is my vision."
But the person really driving Safeena on, inspiring her, acting as her demanding boss is a few feet high -- a little girl. "I feel my boss is That Girl, who was out of school. She's the one. We are driven by the small child inside of us."
WATCH: Safeena on her and Hansal Mehta's real life & reel life, on her daughters, on Eid, Diwali, Christmas:
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
