NGO Educate Girls – Ramon Magsaysay Award

NGO Educate Girls – Ramon Magsaysay Award

About Educate Girls

• Type: Indian non-profit organisation
• Mission: To educate underprivileged girls across India.
• Founder: Safeena Husain
• CEO: Gayatri Nair Lobo
• Initial Focus: Started work in Rajasthan.
• Methodology:
  1. Identified the neediest communities for girls' education.
  2. Brought unschooled or out-of-school girls into the classroom.
  3. Worked to retain them in school until they acquired credentials for higher education and employment.

Foundation’s Citation (Reason for Award)

The Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation recognized Educate Girls for:

• "Groundbreaking work in addressing gender injustice in education in India’s most rural and remote areas."
• Creating "a ripple effect that uplifts families, communities, and entire societies."

What is an NGO?

• NGO (Non-Governmental Organization): A non-profit, voluntary citizens’ group that operates independently of the government.
• Works to promote social, educational, cultural, environmental, or humanitarian causes.
• Funded by donations, grants, membership fees, or international aid rather than government profits.

Functions of NGOs

1. Service Delivery – Provide education, health, sanitation, microcredit, skill training.
2. Awareness & Advocacy – Spread awareness about rights, gender equality, environment, etc.
3. Capacity Building – Empower marginalized communities through training and mobilization.
4. Research & Innovation – Experiment with innovative models for social problems.
5. Humanitarian Relief – Aid during disasters, conflicts, or epidemics.
6. Social Mobilization – Build solidarity and collective action at the grassroots.

Sociological Explanation

Paper 1: Sociology – The Discipline

• NGOs as Agents of Social Change
  • NGOs like Educate Girls embody civil society intervention where the state is weak.
  • They address social inequalities (gender, caste, class) by ensuring access to education.
  • Example of Parsons’ Functionalism: NGOs fulfill integrative functions by filling gaps left by state/market, ensuring system equilibrium.
• Social Control
  • Promote normative values like gender equality and education for girls.
  • Replace traditional patriarchal norms (keeping girls at home) with modern egalitarian values.
• Modernization & Development
  • Fit into Lerner’s Modernization Theory: literacy of women → social mobility → modernization of communities.
  • NGOs become carriers of “modern” values into traditional rural societies.

Paper 2: Indian Society

• Gender & Social Change
  • Educate Girls challenges patriarchy and son preference, enabling girls to access resources.
  • Creates intersectional impact: addressing disadvantages of being female + rural + poor.
• Rural & Social Transformation
  • Work in Rajasthan shows how NGOs act as catalysts of grassroots empowerment in rural India.
  • Education leads to changes in marriage age, fertility patterns, employment opportunities, thus reshaping rural family structure.
• Role in Policy & Development
  • Complement government schemes like Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.
  • Show how state-NGO partnership is crucial in India’s development model.

In short: Sociologically, NGOs like Educate Girls act as mediators between state and society, carriers of modern values, instruments of social mobility, and agents of gender-just social change.