Safeena Husain

Safeena Husain is the founder and executive director at Educate Girls, a nonprofit organization that tackles issues at the root cause of gender inequality in India’s education system.

After graduating from the London School of Economics and Political Science, Husain spent 15 years working with grassroots projects in Ecuador, Mexico, Bolivia, South Africa, and Asia. In India, Husain chose the agenda closest to her heart: girls’ education. Together with a local team, she conducted a 50-school project in the Pali district of Rajasthan. After the project’s successful test phase, Husain established Educate Girls as an nongovernmental organization in 2007. With a focus on enrollment, retention, and learning, Educate Girls has metamorphosed into a program of 8,000 schools that benefits over 2.8 million people.

Husain’s efforts to bridge the gender gap in education in India have been widely recognized. Under her leadership, Educate Girls has received the Skoll, WISE, USAID Millennium Alliance, Stars Impact, and World Bank’s India Development Marketplace awards. Husain received the British Asian Trust Special Recognition Award from Prince Charles for her outstanding contributions to education.