2023 WISE Prize for Education Laureate Safeena Husain is recognized by WISE for her contribution to equity and access to education through building Educate Girls, a non-profit organization focused on empowering communities for girls’ education, partnering with Government to identify, enrol, and retain out-of-school girls across India.
A social impact leader, Safeena Husain is the Founder and Board Member of Educate Girls – an Indian non-profit working towards empowering communities for girls’ education in some of India’s hardest-to-reach villages.
Since its foundation in 2007, Educate Girls has achieved remarkable success, mobilising over 1.4 million girls for enrolment and supporting the education of more than 18.6 million children through the government education system. The organisation works with over 21,000 community based gender champions in some of the most marginalised communities in India to break the cycle of inequality and exclusion.
Under Safeena’s guidance, Educate Girls has become a leading force globally, harnessing both innovative financing and advances in technology through AI to bridge the gender gap in education.
Under her visionary leadership Educate Girls delivered the world’s first Development Impact Bond in education, an innovative outcomes-based financing model that achieved extraordinary results in both learning and enrolment.
Her commitment to bridging the gender gap in education has been recognised on a global scale.
She led Educate Girls to become the first Audacious Project in Asia, a collaborative funding initiative between TED and non -profits that focuses on scaling solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges. She has been conferred with the NITI Aayog Women Transforming India Award emphasising the organisation’s dedication to empowering girls through education.
She has received global accolades, including the USAID Millennium Alliance Award, MIT Solve’s Learning for Girls & Women Challenge, Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, the WISE Award, and the World Bank India Development Marketplace Award, for her work in girls’ education.