A Weekend Hindu

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The extraordinary story of Educate Girls, the award-winning organization reshaping access to education in rural India

'Reveals the quiet revolutions unfolding in India's most forgotten corners' BANU MUSHTAQ

'Shines a keen and compassionate light on the last girl at the first mile of development ... Do read this book' ROHINI NILEKANI

India is one of the largest contributors to the global number of out-of-school girls. Poverty, early marriage and rigid social norms keep millions away from classrooms. At the heart of these issues is the symbolic 'last girl', Antimbala, representing those farthest from opportunity and first to be denied it. What would it take to change her fate-and that of countless others?

In 2007, Safeena Husain, whose own education was once interrupted, set out to find the answer. An initiative that began in a few pockets in Rajasthan has grown into Educate Girls – a grassroots movement that now spans more than 30,000 villages and has helped over two million girls return to learning. Through a network of local volunteers, it built leadership within communities, found new ways to identify out-of-school girls and track their progress, and proved that lasting change can start at the margins.

Drawing on years of first-hand experience and vivid stories from her work in India's villages, Safeena Husain's Every Last Girl traces this remarkable journey – the persistence it demands, and what becomes possible when a society chooses to bring its daughters into its future.

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Safeena Husain has worked extensively with rural and urban underserved communities in South America, Africa and Asia. Armed with a London School of Economics degree, Husain first worked in a start-up in Silicon Valley. She soon switched gears to lead the US-based organization Child Family Health International for seven years. In 2004, she returned to India to take on an issue closest to her heart and launched Educate Girls in 2007. She has shepherded the organization through dramatic growth since then. In 2025, Educate Girls became the first Indian organization to win the Ramon Magsaysay Award.