Pen-powerment | Educate the Girl Child

Everyone always says that pens are mightier than swords. Before every battle fought, it’s the general who is the head behind the strategy. Education itself is a debatable term, according to me. Learning text books is a start to a formal education but hands-on experience in different fields of learning can also be considered as education. Another quote is that if you educate a mother, you educate the nation. Mothers are those entities who every child sees from the beginning of his/her life. We learn from her and our perception builds from what we see. A mother is a mother, nonetheless but an educated mother guides her child strategically through their life battles. Apart from fulfilling a successful role of being a mother, a woman has every right to educate herself and conquer her dreams.

In a patriarchal society, there are still areas that have the taboo of educating their girl and even if they do admit them to schools, the girls are a victim of early marriage or forced marriage. The cities have a completely different scenario. Women are still encouraged to get married as soon as they are of an appropriate (early or mid 20s) age. Now, you might ask, why is it important for women to study? Number one and only, the question is irrelevant in its own. It’s not about women studying, rather its

every human being’s right to education. Every man and woman needs to educate themselves. The question of ‘why’ cannot be considered in any circumstances.

Education doesn’t need to be from text books rather lessons that would help in life. Education would not only help women but would help the nation to grow as the workforce would increase and so will the economy and standard of life. When you’re educating half the world population, you are increasing the world by a notch. So, anyone who believes in gender equality should never ask why a woman should study, rather the question should be how can I help a woman study? Nothing is a better feeling than helping another human being to flourish. Remember, women are human first. Genders are a social construction for discriminating and voicing superiority, and avoiding this superficial thought could might as well be the first step to a better education.

Raisa Rahman

Proud to be A Woman

Growing up in a single child household, I was always the peak of attention of both my parents, both in a positive and negative way. My parents loved me but were overly worried about my safety. My parents loved me but my extended family kept nudging them about how I should be raised like a man to be better in the society. The thought of being raised like a man has always made me cringe. As sexist as it sounded, this was a day-to-day conversation in every household. According to my father, specifically, he wanted me to be as responsible as a man and very often found himself in an avert position of dreading himself that I, one day, would be married off. I never really understood why this was such a necessity. Why couldn’t I be a woman and be brought up like one? That’s when I realized that to them, being brought up as a woman meant to cook, manage the household and take care of the children. So, I got their point, they wanted me to be independent - emotionally, financially and in every other way possible. After so many years of gender equality movement, we are back at the image of independence being equaled to men.

But as I grow up, I realize that I am proud of being a woman. I don’t think of myself as better or worse than men but I just want to be unapologetic as a woman. I can be strong and efficient. I can take care of the household (even though maintaining household should not be gender biased) and my work. I can take care of children and serve my passion at the same time. I don’t think, as a woman, should stop me from being who I am or who I want to be. Every woman should look at the positive, rather than the negative. We have to deal with too much stuff, from home or the world outside but that’s what makes us unique. We have the capability to turn the tables and be who we are. We have the strength to fight for what we want. We should never be sad for getting lesser trips than men or feeling more chained than them - rather we should focus on how to find happiness with what we have and who we are. We should help others to accept us and believe in us and it all starts from right now, today. Take

a moment, breath and enjoy being a woman - without any fear, without feeling like a burden and definitely, without feeling guilty of being a woman.

~Raisa Rahman

pic credits

In conversation with Tata Tea Jaago Re

Mission 1000 has been working to uplift the self-esteem and confidence among the girls and woman who are trained through our customized curriculum of self-defense. This is project shown good results, increasing the confidence and self-esteem of the participants. The results are encouraging and the girls have shown commendable behavior changes post workshop. i.e one of the girl who had been training with us, trained her mother and younger sister in self-defense. Few of the girls are now confident to travel along in government bus to attend school and go out for other work as well. These might sound small changes, however at large in the longer run; this is going to bring upon a great change in the psychological build up of the young girls.  

Recently in conversation with Tata Tea Jaago Re, I got the opportunity to share my views about Mission 1000 and how we can collectively build up a safer society for women and girls. Request you to go through this link. :  https://bit.ly/2KoGnOE

In conversation with Tata Tea Jaago Re, Anand Koti, a professional martial arts expert, explores the need to Pre-Act towards building a safer society for women. 

Read on to find out more: https://bit.ly/2KoGnOE

Look forward to hear your comments and views. Want to be a part of change come join us and drop an email to us.

Best wishes as always,