Zephaniah
Those who have watched our documentary ’’Flight of the Falcons’’ know Miss Ayesha very well; she is from a family of seven sisters and one brother. During the last year, we had been struggling a lot to convince her father to allow her to get more education...
Every religion of this world teaches us to respect and love each other; this is what is common in all religions of our world and I think this is what religions are all about...
What if women started realizing that they are equal to men... that they have a brain to make a decision like them, a pen to let the world know that they can take a stand for their rights like them? We can make it possible and this is what we have decided to do at Zephaniah Free Education.
I was 18 at that time and she was 13.... that was first time in my life that I was so shocked that I could not speak for a while; I felt my mind was blocked and I did not find any words to speak. I was a teenage girl so did not know what to do about this, so I told this to my mother...
I saw a light in her eyes, she was happy because I gave her a way to keep going: “I am educated... I am going to do a job for my family and I will do it..." And I thought I did something good; because of my centre, four lives are going to be safe...
During the last 16 years, I have never seen her taking a day off from work.... It is not easy to work on girls' education and empowerment in Pakistan.... The world must know what great people we have in our communities.
Before she joined our centre, she was not confident... Now she is a qualified beautician and soon she will complete her English language course, and stitching course, too; she is studying also...
At the age of 65, Razia Bibi decided to get education, and now a 10 year old girl is her teacher, who teaches her counting and alphabets of Urdu and English....
Sometimes I feel we all are responsible for wars, and hate for each other.... Change is possible, peace is possible, but it has a fee and the name of the fee is to spread love, care, and appreciation as much as you can.
I can say that slavery has not finished yet... many women are still slaves, as a wife, daughter, sister, mother, or a maid... Yes, there are laws, but if people have no awareness of their rights, then laws are useless.
One day a woman reported into work; she was about 47 years old – a widow... I started encouraging her to get more education. She is 52 now, and so ambitious, too.... I feel like she is like a very young girl who has dreams, who has plans for her life... And this happened only because of her education.
“Sister Zeph, I have learnt it from you that if we will not help each other. we cannot have peace and progress in our world. So I am doing nothing but trying to play my role to bring peace and love.”