I first met Safeena Husain, the founder of Educate Girls, in 2017 to talk to her about the link between education and women’s workforce participation. Through the years we’ve spoken intermittently and each time it’s been an education for me.

Starting with 50 villages in Rajasthan in 2007, Educate Girls had one mission: To keep girls in school. Using a team of volunteers who go from door to door convincing parents to keep their daughters in school, Educate Girls has mobilized over two million girls in over 30,000 villages in Rajasthan as well as Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

Keeping a girl in school has the immediate result of delaying her marriage. It means she will have fewer and healthier children. Each additional year a girl stays in school has the potential to boost her income by as much as 20%. And if all girls completed 12 years of school, India’s GDP could rise by nearly 10% over the next decade.

Earlier this week on August 31, Educate Girls became the first Indian organisation to win the Ramon Magsaysay Award, also known as the Asian Nobel Prize, for “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.” I caught up with Safeena Husain again.

I grew up in Delhi where part of my childhood passed under very difficult circumstances because of which I had an interruption in my own education for a few years. Everyone said, “Let’s get her married off. What else can she........

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