I Open Girls' Minds

By Zephaniah

One incident changed my life forever: in 7th grade, I was delivering a speech to my class, acting like a teacher but standing on her chair. When the actual teacher came, she started beating me in front of my classmates. She abused me and all the girls started ridiculing me. I felt so humiliated, I cried for many days. I felt like my heart was dying inside.

At that moment I decided to leave school, although I never stopped studying. I started reading in the privacy of my home. I decided to start teaching other girls and give them the respect the love and the care that I was not given at my school. In the beginning, there was only one student. My class started in open air and there were no pen, no copy machine, and I only had a few books. But I kept going; I did not want any child to experience what had happened to me. I decided that I will never use a stick in my school, and that I would make education interesting for the children.

I have taught free classes since I was 13 years old, and today I still offer free education to women and children. Since I first started teaching at age 13, I have given five hundred girls formal education. I have provided skills training to 50 women and taught 100 girls English, Internet, and computer. This month, I am starting a beauty salon so that my students can earn some money in the future.

The internet and technology helps to open the mind of girls in our society and it bring us a voice. In Pakistan we have two different societies. In one society we see our women can do anything. They can be administrators, fighter pilots, and even Prime Minister of the country. Some people look at these women and feel we are changing, and our women are getting their rights. On the other side, women are still being killed for so-called honor; they are mentally tortured; they cannot even decide when to sleep and when to wake up; they do not have a right to education, to choose their career, to choose their life partner. They have to suffer their whole lives for love, care, and respect. When I started teaching women and girls I came to understand a lot of the problems that women are facing; I felt their misery, helplessness, their pain.

I believe that the solution to all of our problems is in education and using technology to empowering the women of our world.