In some areas of India, only about 30 % of the women can read and write. Most girls have to leave school to help support the family. Women are not permitted to interact with men lawyers, be taught by men teachers or get treated by men doctors.
An organization called Selfie with Daughter Foundation is leading the campaign to educate women in these areas. Its aim is to bring change by publicizing the success stories of some young women who made it to college and now serve as role models for other families. The young women go from house to house to share their own experiences to persuade parents to keep their daughters at school.
Rizwana Khan is training to be a nurse. As a teenager, she became terribly sick, but her treatment was a problem. Medical centers in the area were of very poor quality and there were no women doctors. It made her decide to get her own education. She wants to bring medical aid to women in her area. "Some families don't want to educate their daughters, but if women are ill, they want a lady doctor. How will that happen?" Rizwana said.
Anjum Islam is studying law. She wants to provide free legal aid for women. But her bigger goal is to change minds. "Men think that women are only meant to do housework and give birth to children," Islam said, "We have to change this thinking. If we have equality under the law, how can society look down on women?"
The campaign is having success in influencing some women. Aslima Khan is 30 years old. All day long she works with the animals, finds firewood, cleans, cooks and washes dishes. She is determined to educate her three daughters. She wants to make sure they can escape her life story of hard, backbreaking work. "Had I had studied, I would have been saved from this," she said.
