India- Founded by Safeena Husain in 2007, the FOUNDATION TO EDUCATE GIRLS GLOBALLY (or Educate Girls) tackles India’s deep gender gap in education by mobilizing communities and governments to bring out-of-school rural and tribal girls into classrooms.
- Through its flagship “Team Balika” volunteer movement, Educate Girls has engaged local youth to identify, enroll, and retain millions of girls in school, achieving over 90% retention across more than 30,000 villages.
- Pioneered the world’s first Development Impact Bond (DIB) in education, linking donor funding to measurable learning and enrollment outcomes—surpassing goals by 160% in learning gains and 116% in enrollment.
- Expanded opportunities for older girls and women through Pragati, an open-schooling initiative enabling learners aged 15–29 to complete education and access employment opportunities, now reaching over 31,500 learners.
- The RMAF board of trustees recognizes its commitment to addressing cultural stereotyping through the education of girls and young women, liberating them from the bondage of illiteracy and infusing them with skills, courage, and agency to achieve their full human potential.
India is one of the world’s largest and most powerful countries, in terms of its population, economy, and political importance. Since its independence in the past century, it has achieved massive strides in its technological and economic growth. It is now the world’s fourth-largest economy on the strength of its exports, services sector, and domestic consumption.
India’s story shows both challenges and hope. The visible signs of India’s new affluence belie many profound inequalities in its society—notably in incomes and educational opportunities. Despite the overall surge in growth, equality remains out of reach for many rural and tribal girls, who have been the most neglected for lack of adequate education. In Rajasthan, India’s largest state, girls have the highest illiteracy rate.
This disparity has had a deep detrimental impact on Indian society, where illiterate girls are forced to marry early, have children, and work—while culturally privileged males go to school. Given their limited horizons, only a lifetime of penury and servitude awaits most of these women.
In 2005, a young graduate of the London School of Economics then working in San Francisco, United States of America, decided to return home to India to take on this challenge. After two years of studying the problem, Safeena Husain established the Foundation to Educate Girls Globally (FEGG) or “Educate Girls,” a non-profit organization dedicated to mobilizing community and government resources for girls’ education in rural and educationally disadvantaged areas of India.
Starting out in Rajasthan, Educate Girls identified the neediest communities in terms of girls’ education, brought unschooled or out-of-school girls into the classroom, and worked to keep them there until they were able to acquire credentials for higher education and gainful employment. 2015 was a year of innovative collaborations. It launched the world’s first Development Impact Bond (DIB) in education, aimed at tying financial aid to achieved outcomes.
The results were dramatic. What began with fifty pilot village schools reached over 30,000 villages across India’s most underserved regions, involving over two million girls, with a retention rate of over 90%. Organized into Team Balika (Team for the Girl Child), local volunteers went door-to-door to identify out-of-school girls, address parents’ concerns, and help with documentation. At the end of the DIB project in 2018, Educate Girls had surpassed its total learning targets by 160% and its total enrollment target by 116%.
Beyond enrolling young girls, Educate Girls also launched Pragati, an open-schooling program that allows young women aged 15-29 to complete their education and avail themselves of lifelong opportunities. Its initial cohort of 300 learners has grown to over 31,500 learners.
Through its programs, it waged war on two fronts: the societal and systemic. Societal barriers kept girls at home, performing domestic chores as sisters, wives, and mothers. Systemic barriers limited the funds and resources required to improve girls’ access to education. Hovering above these was the patriarchal mindset—that needed to be challenged and proven wrong.
“Girls’ education is the closest thing we have to a silver bullet to solve some of the world’s most difficult problems,” says Husain. “It is one of the best investments a country can make, impacting nine of the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals, including health, nutrition, and employment.
“Educate Girls remains committed to breaking the cycle of illiteracy and poverty for girls. By scaling our programs, deepening government partnerships, and embedding community-led solutions, we strive to create a brighter, more equitable future—one girl at a time,” she adds.
Educate Girls entered communities where girls and women were expected to stay in the shadows—and made them visible. By working within the system, they were able to change it, transforming schools into spaces of possibility. They challenged tradition, shifted mindsets, and showed that education is not a privilege, but a right that reshapes and rebuilds lives. It is enabling the women of India to take their rightful place in their own country, and the world.
In electing the Foundation to Educate Girls Globally to receive the 2025 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes its commitment to addressing cultural stereotyping through the education of girls and young women, liberating them from the bondage of illiteracy and infusing them with skills, courage, and agency to achieve their full human potential.
(Delivered by Safeena Husain, founder of the Foundation to Educate Girls Globally)
I started Educate Girls in my home with a computer screen in front of me and my infant daughter on my lap. Eighteen years later, to be the first Indian organization to receive the Ramon Magsaysay Award is historic, humbling and completely unbelievable.
While I planted the seed for this organization, it has been nurtured over the last decades by many, many hands.
This win is dedicated to the hard work of the Educate Girls’ current and past team members, and especially our field coordinators, who go door to door to find every single girl who is not going to school. They do it when it rains or even when the temperature hits 45 degrees centigrade. They climb mountains and cross rivers just to make sure every single home is visited and no girl is left behind. It is because of their hard work that this mission has expanded from just a few villages when we began to more than 30,000 today.
This win is dedicated to the 55,000 youth, our Team Balika volunteers, who have worked with us since inception to bring over 2 million girls back to school. They inspire us daily with their motto, “Mera Gaon, Meri Samasya, aur Main hi Samadhan,” which means “My village, my problem, and I am the solution.”
This win is dedicated to over 3,000 Preraks, our mentors, who work with adolescent girls and young women who cannot go back to formal school. They help them learn in village-based learning camps, sometimes set up in their own homes to ensure that girls can complete their secondary education. They go above and beyond the call of duty to support girls, sometimes babysitting their children, or even grazing their goats so that girls don’t miss their exams. Their hard work has ensured that over 30,000 girls are getting a second chance at education and a second chance at a future.
This win is dedicated to parents, community members, teachers, headmasters and countless others who stand up for our girls and provide day-to-day support for our programs and for our team members.
This win is dedicated to our Board, our supporters, our partners in the government and civil society. Thank you for placing your trust and faith in us. Your support provides us with the much-needed fuel to propel this mission forward.
This win is for our girls who inspire us daily with their courage, grit and resilience. For girls who cook, clean, tend to cattle, look after siblings and then study late into the night to build a brighter future for themselves, their families and their country. This award sheds light on their struggles and the numerous challenges they face.
Over the years, we have met hundreds of out-of-school girls, called “Antimbala,” or “the last girl.” They were named Antimbala because everyone hoped that they would be the last girls to be born.
So, today, in honor of Antimbala, we at Educate Girls pledge to 10X10. We commit to reaching 10 million learners over the next 10 years, working to ensure that no girl is denied a quality education.
Because when a girl is educated, magic happens! Education opens up opportunities, opportunities give her choices, and choices give her a voice and agency to help her reach her full potential.
Also, we only have to do it once. Because when she is educated, she is twice as likely to educate her children and break the cycle of illiteracy and poverty forever.
Finally, I want to thank my husband and my children for making my mission their mission and for standing behind me all these years. I want to thank my father, who is watching from above, and my mother, who is here today. Nothing can happen without the blessings of our elders.
Our deepest gratitude to the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for this incredible recognition. You have energized us and given us a tailwind to help carry our mission forward, in India and beyond.
I am Safeena Husain, and I Educate Girls
Thank you.