Who We Are
Educate Girls works with the government, community and village-based volunteers and mentors to ensure every girl in the remotest parts of India is included, educated and empowered with choices and voices.
About Us
Educate Girls is a non-profit that focuses on mobilising communities for girls’ education in India’s rural and educationally marginalised areas.
Strongly aligned with the ‘Right to Education Act’, ‘Samagra Shiksha,’ and the National Education Policy, Educate Girls is committed to the Government’s vision to improve access to quality education for all learners, especially girls and young women.
By leveraging the Government’s existing investment in schools and engaging with a huge base of community volunteers, Educate Girls helps identify, enrol, and retain out-of-school girls and improve foundational skills in literacy and numeracy for all children (both girls and boys). When formal schooling isn't an option, Educate Girls provides a second chance program to help girls complete their secondary education. This helps deliver measurable results to a large number of learners and avoids parallel service delivery.
GOAL
Our goal is to improve access and quality of education for 10 million learners cumulatively by 2035.
Leadership
Safeena Husain is a social impact leader and the Founder of Educate Girls, an Indian non-profit that partners with communities to mobilise volunteers and government resources for girls’ education in some of India’s most underserved and remote regions. In 2026, she was featured in the TIME Women of the Year list, recognising global changemakers working toward a more equitable world.
In January 2026, her book Every Last Girl: A Journey to Educate India’s Forgotten Daughters was launched at the Jaipur Literature Festival. The book traces the remarkable journey of building Educate Girls, drawing on vivid, first-hand stories from India’s villages and reflecting on the persistence required to reach the ‘last girl’—those farthest from opportunity—and on what becomes possible when communities come together to transform the futures of their daughters.
In 2025, Safeena led Educate Girls to a historic milestone, becoming the first Indian non-profit to receive the Ramon Magsaysay Award, widely regarded as Asia’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize. In 2024, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). In 2023, she became the first Indian woman to be honoured with the WISE Prize for Education for her transformative work in advancing gender equity through education.
Under her leadership, Educate Girls has pioneered innovative, community-led models—most notably the Team Balika network of over 55,000 community champions—which has mobilised more than 2 million out-of-school girls back to education and improved learning outcomes for over 2.4 million children since inception. She also spearheaded the world’s first Development Impact Bond in education and led Educate Girls to become Asia’s first TED Audacious Project.
Drawing on her lived experience, Safeena brings a deep understanding of the challenges faced by marginalised communities. Her vision for 2035 is to empower 10 million learners through scalable, community-driven solutions grounded in volunteerism, participation, and equity.
Gayatri Nair Lobo is a senior leader in India’s development sector, known for driving high-impact, systems-level change across education, sustainability, and community empowerment. With nearly 25 years of experience spanning strategy consulting and grassroots development, she brings a unique combination of strategic foresight, analytical rigour and operational expertise.
Currently, the Chief Executive Officer of Educate Girls, Gayatri, is leading the organisation’s new strategy — a bold, decade-long mission to help 10 million learners unlock their right to education, agency, and opportunity. Under her leadership, Educate Girls is scaling its impact across India and deepening delivery and grassroots leadership.
Before joining Educate Girls, Gayatri was the CEO of A.T.E. Chandra Foundation, where she led sustainable development initiatives focused on water body rejuvenation, regenerative agriculture, and capacity building for nonprofits. Gayatri also served as CEO of the India School Leadership Institute (ISLI), where she strengthened school leadership across low-income schools and invested in building the capacity of principals as changemakers. Earlier, she was Chief Operating Officer at Teach For India during its formative years, playing a pivotal role in scaling operations and setting up strong delivery systems. Her experience also spans leadership roles at Dalberg Advisors and top-tier consulting firms like OC&C Strategy Consultants and Avalon Consulting, where she led multi-sectoral projects across education, infrastructure, and retail.
A passionate advocate for women’s leadership and community empowerment, Gayatri firmly believes that transformative change begins with local capacity and endures when built into systems.
Senior Management Team
Board

Ganesh Natrajan

Ireena Vittal

Luis Miranda

Safeena Husain

Sumit Bose

Ujwal Thakar
Chairperson, Board of Directors
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Educate Girls is a project of Foundation To Educate Girls Globally (FEGG) | FEGG is registered in India under Section 8 of the Indian Companies Act, 2013.
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