Mumbai, Sept. 2 -- An interruption of about three years in her education after Class 12 made Safeena Husain (54) realise how that affected her confidence. Years later, she became the first person in her family to pursue her undergraduate studies overseas at the London School of Economics (LSE). On Sunday, 18 years after she founded Educate Girls, it became the first Indian non-profit to win the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award, a journey that Husain describes as "incredible". "Because of a lot of difficulties in my childhood, my own education was interrupted," said Husain. "So, I know how an out-of-school girl feels when your friends move ahead and you are sitting at home. You have no self-esteem or confidence left in yourself. The shame and guilt you feel for not having done as well as others." She is quick to add that she was lucky. An aunt, who was an integral part of her life, took her under her wing and encouraged her to get back to school, which eventually led her to LSE, where she studied economics and economic history. "Seeing the value of education in my own life, I wanted to start and be committed to this mission," she said. Husain grew up in different parts of Delhi, and her addresses over the years included one-room Janta flats of the Delhi Development Authority to posh Saket. After completing her course at LSE, she also lived in San Francisco for about a decade. It was in the US that she started her non-profit journey as a volunteer. She worked in the area of healthcare volunteering in Latin American countries, including the Ecuadorian Amazon jungle. When she came back to India in 2005, she said, she looked back on her journey that led to starting Educate Girls. She moved to Mumbai because her father, Yusuf Husain, was then pursuing acting, a late career pivot, she said. She is married to filmmaker Hansal Mehta, but she has stayed "as far away as possible" from the entertainment industry. "Nothing more than a school play," she said, laughing, when asked about her brush with acting. The work that Educate Girls, with an office in Andheri's Veera Desai Road, started in 2007 began in different districts of Rajasthan. Husain said that at the outset, they were just a two-member team in a room no larger than a broom cupboard with a desktop and a vision. "I just knew that I wanted to work for girls' education, but I didn't know where to start. So I went to MHRD (Union Ministry of Human Resource Development). I also realised that acceleration can only happen in collaboration with the government. They gave me a list of districts where the gender gap in education was critical. Nine of 26 such districts were in Rajasthan, so that's why we chose Rajasthan," she said. While poverty and patriarchy have played their part in putting many girls in India out of school, Husain said that a mindset shift does take time. "Lecturing" people about the need to change their mindset was futile. "It has to come from within the community," she said, and underlined the importance of a community-led movement. "It has to be someone from the village itself to counter that mindset." Educate Girls, she said, had showcased India's "people power" in promoting girls' education and gender equality on a global stage. The non-profit has partnered with state governments to mobilise over 2 million girls for school enrolment in over 30,000 villages in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar with a network of over 55,000 community-based volunteers. The Magsaysay Award, she said, had thrown light on the work of a non-profit, which was "fantastic" for the sector. This would inspire NGOs to do much more. "It's so amazing to shine a light on the issue. That itself is a mindset shift. It again will give it a tailwind," said Husain....