March 8, 2016 by Matt T. Reed for Huffington Post India: Last year, I sat with some young women in a programme the Aga Khan Foundation runs in Uttar Pradesh. They held hands or leaned on each other. Some had never been to school; others were withdrawn by their parents. A few were already married. They had struggled to get permission to join, but their parents were convinced by the vocational training offered alongside reading, counting, and ‘life skills’–self-esteem, confidence, financial literacy and adolescent health.
The girls said the most important thing was coming together and supporting each other. One girl’s reply stays with me: “Sir,” she said emotionally, “before, my father never had time for me. He didn’t look at me and was not interested in anything I did. But now he knows I can contribute money and he is proud.”
More at the source: huffingtonpost.in
Matt Reed is the Chief Executive Officer of the Aga Khan Foundation (India). Prior to this role, he was the Director of Programmes at the Aga Khan Foundation (UK), where he oversaw strategic partnerships, long-range business development, and project oversight for the Aga Khan Development Network with European governments, development finance institutions, and multilateral development banks.
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