Girl Rising: One Girl with Courage is a Revolution

Written by: Bakhtawar Ali & Sidra Ajmal
Picture credits: Tooba Waseem
"The future must not belong to those who bully women. It must be shaped by girls who go to school and those who stand for a world where our daughters can live their dreams just like our sons."-President Barack Obama.

The documentary film, Girl Rising which was screened on the evening of 23rd Dec’13 in IBA depicted the stories of 9 girls determined to define such a future. These were stories of strength, of courage and an exceptional ability to fight against all the odds. They urged the audience to stand up for some of the basic rights of women like education and equality. The power of this film can be seen by the fact that it left everyone in the audience teary eyed and tongue tied.

The film also aimed to urge aspiring documentary filmmakers to use the power of storytelling and come forth with such stories from our country as well. The story of Wadley from Haiti was awe-inspiring as amidst the odds of poverty and earthquake disaster, she was determined to attain education because it was her basic right and nothing could stand in her way to exercise that very right.
Another relatable story was of Rukhsana from Kolkata, India. Though she used to live on the streets, she went to school and pursued her passion in arts thanks to the support from her father, a daily laborer.

Such stories also conveyed message as to how education could benefit economies, and sustainably cease intergenerational transmission of poverty as testified by the following CIA World Fact book: If India enrolled 1% more girls in secondary school, its GDP would rise by $5.5 billion.

Hence, a country’s state of education is inextricably linked to our health, economy and needs to be urgently tackled by each and every one of us because we are the privileged ones, the well-fed ones and it is incumbent upon us to do everything in our capacity to address such alarming issue of education in country where male to female literacy ratio is stagnantly at 65:40.

This issue was highlighted by our esteemed guests, Alizeh Amer and Ms. Roohi Abdullah who represented the core team of Girl Rising Pakistan. It was Ms. Roohi Abdullah’s independent and pro-bono initiative to screen the documentary film in Pakistan as part of her awareness campaign. The other guests from the core team members included Mr. Amer Zahoor and Ms. Ayesha Amer. Our esteemed faculty guests included Dr. Framji Minwalla, Dr. Talat Wizarat, Ms. Maria Hasan and Dr. Erum Hafeez.

Although the turnout for the event was not very high but the faculty guest and chairperson of Social Sciences & Liberal Arts department, Dr. Framji Minwala, was touched by the movie. In his concluding address, he asked everyone in the audience to spread the word about the film and to tell everyone to go and watch it not only for the awareness of women rights but also for a better future.

Verily, Pakistan’s future depends not just upon us but also upon those who remain deprived of education and it’s upto us to make sure that it is accessible for every boy and girl because if they falter then so would we.