About Us
Our Founder
Safeena, a London School of Economics graduate, has worked extensively with rural and urban underserved communities in South America, Africa and Asia. After returning to India, Safeena chose the agenda closest to her heart – that of girls’ education.
Safeena’s efforts to bridge the gender gap in education in India have been widely recognized, both in India and across the world. She has been conferred with the 2017 NITI Aayog’s Women Transforming India Award, the 2016 NDTV-L’Oréal Paris Women of Worth Award, and has in the past received the British Asian Trust’s Special Recognition Award from HRH Prince Charles for outstanding contribution in education. Moreover, Educate Girls has received the prestigious 2015 Skoll Award, 2014 WISE Award, the 2014 USAID Millennium Alliance Award, the 2014 Stars Impact Award and the India Development Marketplace Award in 2011 from the World Bank. In 2019 Educate Girls was named an Audacious Project and Safeena’s TED Talk went live.
Our Approach
Educate Girls works with local implementation partners to ensure that girls in even the most remote areas of India have access to educational opportunities. Our partners in India leverage smart data and technology to pinpoint regions where factors like poverty, migration, gender stereotyping, and a lack of resources prevent girls from attending school. Our programming focuses on identifying, enrolling and improving learning outcomes for younger girls, and providing a second chance to education for older girls. Additionally, we collaborate with local civil society organizations through Project Maitri (hindi for “”Friendship””) to expand the reach of these educational initiatives. For more information on our grantmaking, please visit our grantmaking page.
Our Programs
Our local implementation partners support girls throughout their educational journey and integrate them into further education and workforce opportunities. The in-school Vidya program collaborates with a network of community-based volunteers to identify and reintegrate marginalized girls aged 6-14 into the mainstream education system and enhance foundational literacy and numeracy skills through remedial learning programs. The open-school Pragati program provides a second-chance education for adolescent girls and young women aged 15-29. It both conducts community-based camps to help young women pass the grade 10 credential, and works with local governments to improve open-school infrastructure. For more information on our programs, visit our programs page.
