Educate Girls Makes History as First Indian Non-Profit to Win 2025 Ramon Magsaysay Award.
Awards
India’s non-profit Educate Girls, founded in 2007 by Safeena Husain, has become the first Indian organization to be honored with the 2025 Ramon Magsaysay Award, widely regarded as Asia’s Nobel Prize. It has reached over 2 million out-of-school girls and delivered remedial education to more than 2.4 million children, transforming rural education across 30,000+ villages.
- In 2025, Educate Girls set a milestone by becoming the first Indian non-profit to receive the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award, an accolade established in 1957 to honor courageous leadership and service across Asia. The formal presentation of the award will take place on 7 November 2025 at the Metropolitan Theatre in Manila, Philippines.
- Founded in 2007 by Safeena Husain, Educate Girls began with pilot work in Pali district, Rajasthan. Since then, the organization has expanded into over 30,000 villages, mobilizing more than 2 million girls back into school and providing remedial learning support to over 2.4 million children. It also operates across several Indian states, including Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar.
- Educate Girls leverages a powerful grassroots model anchored by over 23,000 'Team Balika' volunteers who work within communities to identify out-of-school girls and bring them into government schools using existing infrastructure. Two flagship initiatives underscore its impact: the Vidya program, enrolling girls up to age 14, and Pragati, which offers a second-chance education for adolescents and young women aged 15–29 to boost employability.
Main Point :- (i) Safeena Husain, the founder of Educate Girls, has been pivotal in the organization’s success. Her leadership and innovation have earned the NGO global recognition and placed India’s girls’ education movement in the spotlight.
(ii) Educate Girls now stands alongside a lineage of renowned Ramon Magsaysay laureates, from Satyajit Ray and Kiran Bedi to the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa.
(iii) Building on its success, Educate Girls aims to reach 10 million learners in the next decade, aligning with national educational imperatives and leveraging partnerships with government and communities. Its transformative model emphasizes sustainable behavior change and gender equality, reinforcing education as both a human right and a powerful tool for social justice.
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