Safeena Husain

Biography

Safeena is the Founder and Executive Director of Educate
Girls (EG), an NGO focused on mobilising communities for
girls’ education. Under Safeena’s leadership, since EG’s
inception in 2007, the NGO has enrolled 750,000+ girls in
school and improved learning outcomes for 1.3 million+
children in India.
Safeena’s guidance and leadership has been instrumental in
EG achieving a major global milestone –
the world’s first Development Impact Bond in education. On
its completion, the bond surpassed both its target outcomes
by achieving 160% of its learning target and 116% of its
enrolment target. These results are testimony to the
commitment of EG to deliver quality at scale (the
organisation currently has 1,760 full time employees and
13,000+ community volunteers) and value to every single
child in the program. She has also been instrumental in EG
becoming the first Audacious project in Asia, a first-of-its-kind coalition that surfaces and
funds critical projects with the potential to create global change.
  
Previously, Safeena has worked extensively with rural and urban underserved communities
in South America, Africa and Asia. She has been conferred with the 2017 NITI Aayog’s
Women Transforming India Award, the 2016 NDTV-L’Oréal Paris Women of Worth Award,
and has in the past received the British Asian Trust’s Special Recognition Award from HRH
Prince Charles for outstanding contribution in education. Moreover, Educate Girls has
received the prestigious 2015 Skoll Award, 2014 WISE Award, the 2014 USAID Millennium
Alliance Award, the 2014 Stars Impact Award and the India Development Marketplace
Award in 2011 from the World Bank.
ABOUT EDUCATE GIRLS: Educate Girls is a non-profit organisation that focuses on mobilising
communities for girls’ education in India’s rural and educationally backward areas. Working in
partnership with the Government, Educate Girls currently operates successfully in over 18,000
villages