Safeena Husain is a social worker and founder of Educate Girls – a non-profit organisation that is headquartered in

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. It focusses on mobilising communities for girls’ education in India’s rural and educationally backward areas. Under her leadership, Educate Girls’ launched world’s first Development Impact Bond in education which on its completion in 2018 surpassed both its target outcomes.

Career

Husain worked in San Francisco as the Executive Director for Child Family Health International from 1998-2004. Prior to her role in San Francisco she graduated from the London School of Economics.

Educate Girls

Husain moved to

in 2005 where she began working on what would become Educate Girls. Educate Girls was founded in 2007. She pointed to surveys indicating India was the worst G20 country to be born a woman in as demonstration for India's need for a large scale NGO focused on gender equity in education. There were no such organizations, to her satisfaction, in India at the time. She initially focused on working with the Ministry of Education in partnering with schools in

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and Jalore which had the worst education gender gaps at the time. Husain subsequently contacted Pratham and UNICEF to learn best practices. She focused on being the strongest presence in a focused community and encouraging community participation. This strategy led to the creation of, Team Balika, a volunteer organization with thousands of members. Their goal is to find out of school girls and encourage them to re-enroll. Husain has highlighted Educate Girls effort to work with the education system and improve it rather than working against the system. Educate girls embodied this idea by signing a Memorandum of Understanding with the government to replicate the organizations model at 2,083 schools in Jalore. Educate Girls work from 2015-2018 was partially funded by the world's first education related Development Impact Bond. Husain lauded this model because resulted based financing allowed Educate Girls to be innovative in their practices. The program surpassed all its targets for the bond payouts.

Recognition & Awards

She is a Rainer Arnhold Fellow and Times Now "Amazing Indian". Husain featured as a speaker at a TEDxASB event on the subject of "Rejuvenating Government Schools in India for Girls' Education". In 2014 and 2023, Husain won the WISE prize. WISE is an award from Qatar for outstanding impact in education. The 2023 award came with $500,000 for Educatate Girls. * ET Prime Women Leadership Award 2019 * Winner NITI Aayog Women Transforming India Award 2017 * Winner NDTV-L’Oréal Paris Women of Worth Award 2016 * Winner 2015 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship - April 2015

Personal life

Safeena Husain was married to Hansal Mehta in 2022 after 17 years together. She had two daughters with him prior to marriage. Their names are Kimaya Mehta and Rehana Mehta.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Husain, Safeena 21st-century Indian women educational theorists 21st-century Indian educational theorists Living people Social workers from Delhi Women educators from Delhi Educators from Delhi 1971 births