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.
Most recently, in recognition of her ongoing work, in 2024 Safeena received an honorary doctorate from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). This adds to her remarkable achievement in 2023, when she became the first Indian woman to be honoured as a WISE Prize laureate for her contributions to girls’ education in rural India.
Under Safeena’s guidance, Educate Girls has become a leading force globally, harnessing innovative financing and technology to bridge the gender gap in education. Under her leadership, Educate Girls delivered the world’s first Development Impact Bond in education, an outcomes-based financing model that achieved extraordinary results in both learning and enrollment. She led Educate Girls to become Asia’s first TED Audacious Project, a collaborative funding initiative focusing on scaling solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges. Safeena was conferred the NITI Aayog (an Indian Government Entity) Women Transforming India Award and has received global accolades, including the USAID Millennium Alliance Award, MIT Solve’s Learning for Girls & Women Challenge, Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, and the World Bank India Development Marketplace Award. Safeena grew up in New Delhi and is an alum of the London School of Economics.
Our Grantmaking
Educate Girls is a U.S.-based charity dedicated to ensuring girls’ access to quality education in India by raising financial support in the U.S. and engaging in strategic grantmaking through local implementation partners in India. Our grantmaking approach is both strategic and outcomes-focused, aiming to address educational barriers faced by girls and young women.
We support local, community-based non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that are deeply embedded in their communities and equipped to tackle local challenges effectively. Our grants are designed to achieve specific, measurable goals. Funds are allocated based on performance milestones, ensuring that resources are used efficiently to drive tangible results. In addition to financial support, our implementing partners share knowledge, expertise, technical assistance, and training with each other to enhance their capabilities and achieve their objectives.
By fostering strong, localized partnerships, we ensure that our efforts are not only impactful but also sustainable, building a foundation for long-term educational reform and empowerment.
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.
