When Time magazine named Safina Hussain one of 16 Women of the Year 2026, she was standing outside at a philanthropy conference in Mumbai, looking skyward so she could see the stars. “This almost never happens in Mumbai,” he told me later. “I felt very inspired.”
Making the impossible visible has been Safina’s life’s work. For two decades, he has searched for girls in India’s most forgotten villages with names like Maafi (Forgive me for being a girl) and Missed Call (We asked God for a boy, but he missed the call).
Even before I met Safina Hussain, I knew I would love her.
As a mother of three girls – engineers, athletes, dreamers – I feel a deep gratitude for the women who made those futures possible. and Safina Hussain, founder of Educate Girls, are with the fighters.
We met at the Jaipur Literature Festival earlier this year. Safina sitting in front of me is looking beautiful in teal blue silk saree and long navy coat. She smiled when she saw me holding Every Last Girl, the book she was about to launch.
The book is full of heart-wrenching stories. But it also offers hope with several strategies to get girls in school. An innovative approach involves staging village plays dramatizing the life and death effects of illiteracy.
Safina speaks with intensity and clarity. We talk about his childhood, the process of writing his book, and the impact of winning the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award. Here are edited excerpts of our conversation.
Safina, are you a reader?
My parents divorced when I was young. My mother remarried and my stepfather was an alcoholic. We lived in a one-room public flat in Delhi. I always lived in my own world, a girl with her nose in a book.
There used to be a mobile library outside Naoroji Nagar in Delhi which used to come to our neighborhood and I read a lot of books from there.
I read books with all kinds of titles, like The Merchant of Venice, which I later realized was a translation of The Merchant of Venice. I read a lot of things, but I read everything in Hindi.
There was a vegetable market in Saket, and that was a place where comic books were available on rent cheaply, and I read all those comic book digests – whatever I could get my hands on.
You went from Hindi comic books to Nobel Prize-winning Korean author Han Kang – how did this journey happen?
I started studying in English, which was difficult at first. I started with simple books like Enid Blyton and the Nancy Drew series. In high school, I moved to Oscar Wilde, GB Shaw, etc.
Now I’m discovering a lot of female authors – books like The Vegetarian (by Han Kang) and Butter (by Asako Yuzuki). There’s incredible writing, like Bunny (Mona Awad), highly imaginative, and Sally Rooney. I like these young women with fresh voices.
And now you’re the author of a book? What prompted you to write this judgment?
I was giving a speech in Oxford when the moderator later said to me, “There’s been a lot written about you – I’ve read your articles and media reports – but nothing in your own voice.”
It shocked me, because it was true. We did a lot, but never shared our journey, thoughts or ideas in our own voice. He sowed the seed.
The hardest part was deciding how to write the book and what it should be about. It took time. Then in 2019, after a TED talk, I visited the TED Bookstore in Vancouver and looked at books by TED speakers. That gave me confidence: If I could give a TED talk, maybe I could turn it into a TED book.
What made you decide this book should be – an academic book, a memoir, or something else?
That was the most difficult decision. Writing about gender and education can take a deeper, academic direction – or just be a collection of stories. There were many ways to reach it.
Eventually, I realized I wanted to write a human book – one that tells the story and makes the case for girls’ education in a simple, jargon-free way. This is not a sector book or an NGO book. This is truly a book for you, me and everyone else.
What is the core message you want to convey to readers through this book?
Sitting in cities, we think that the problem of girls’ education has been solved – but it is not so. The book brings that reality back into focus, showing that work doesn’t get done just because a woman heads the Reserve Bank or because some women are in high positions. This is not done until every last girl reaches school with real options.
I also want the reader to see that this is solvable. This is not disappointing. We have data, algorithms to identify out-of-school girls, and community volunteers who support educating girls like Team Balika, who say, “Every girl in my village should go to school.”
This isn’t just a book about the problem – it’s about finding solutions and taking immediate action while we still can to change the lives of these girls.
Can you tell us about your process for writing the book?
I started by asking myself what I really wanted to write. Then I created a framework: part one is the girls’ world, part two is the beginning of the movement, part three is getting the momentum going.
Once I had that, I focused on one chapter at a time. Most of it came from my own experiences – work, conversations, observed stories – so once I knew what to include, formatting was surprisingly quick.
I devoted one to two days each week entirely to the book, blocking off the entire day for writing.
Then I was lucky enough to be nominated for the Rockefeller Bellagio Residency in Italy, which gave me an entire month with no family and no dinners to cook—just time to book. I came up with a manuscript in pieces and, in about three weeks, brought it together for my publisher. That residency gave me the focus and closure I needed.
You shared a small part of your story in your book. was it hard?
I didn’t want the book to be entirely about my trauma, even though I had a difficult childhood. This will not do any good to the girls.
At the same time, if I only told the girls’ stories and never acknowledged my own life experience, it would seem a little dishonest, as if I was an outsider simply observing. So I’ve shared some of my story, but the heart of the book is the girls.
Can you talk a little about how your own life has shaped the work you do for girls’ education?
My childhood was difficult. There was violence, there was abuse and at that time we didn’t even have words for it. We didn’t have the vocabulary, and society also made you feel like you were somehow at fault, that you weren’t a “good girl”, that you should shut up.
Due to all this, I could not continue my education after 12th. It was a difficult time – everyone around me said: “Marry her, get over it, otherwise what will she do?” I was lost. I also stayed in Krishna Ashram for some time, tried many ways, but to no avail.
Then an aunty stood up for me. I lived in his house for two years and he gave me a lot of love. And then, slowly, I came back to education. I went straight to the London School of Economics. I was 21 years old, and everyone entering was like 18 years old, but I said to myself: It’s okay, I can be a mature student.
I had no money, so I did everything – washing dishes and working on the cash till in vegetarian cafes, restocking books in the library, tutoring, working as a naan and rotis maker in Southall, doing bookkeeping for small businesses – just to survive. That entire journey gave me the strength that I can survive, I can stand.
So when I see girls now – like Halima, whose mother died during Covid, who had to run the household and then, four or five years later, when she wants to come back to education, she suddenly becomes “older” and ineligible – I completely understand that guilt, that shame, that feeling of being left behind. Much of this book actually came from that place.
You have received international recognition from the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award 2025. How has it affected you?
It has changed the type of energy and motivation the entire team gets. It’s like, Oh my God, now we’ve got this—go, go, go! The sense of responsibility is much greater.
And now, to be named one of Time’s 16 Women of the Year – what’s that been like?
It feels like our girls are being seen on the global stage.
When TIME reached out for an interview, we had a feeling something was going on, but then nothing was confirmed…we were kept in the dark until the official announcement!
When it came out and I saw that list – Teyana Taylor, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Chloé Zhao, Mel Robbins – I was humbled and, honestly, a little overwhelmed. I went out. The sky of Mumbai was so clear that you could see the stars. I stood there thinking about our girls.
(Sonya Dutta Chaudhary is a Mumbai-based journalist and founder of Sonya’s Book Box, an exclusive book service. Every week, she brings you specially curated books to give you a deeper understanding of people and places. If you have any reading recommendations or reading dilemmas, write to sonyasbookbox@gmail.com. Views expressed are personal)
