‘There is no greater pillar of stability than a strong, free, and educated woman.’ True and on the point saying because society progresses when women are educated, their countries become stronger and more prosperous. Women’s growth is directly proportional to society and the country’s growth. So the “Hatke Story” has brought you a fable of a girl named Neloufer Tabbasum, who has become an ideal for her society by eliminating the wrong thinking regarding girls’ education.
She went through hardships, dealt with challenging circumstances, and overcame challenges to achieve a high position in her career. After knowing a little about her, we became curious. So we got connected to her and pulled out her story. Let us read this inspirational story and applaud her efforts.
Neloufer Tabbasum – My Story
I’m Neloufer Tabbasum. I am a social scientist and Professional Social worker, and I did my master’s in social work. Currently, I am a Co-Founder of Good universe NGO, which is working on Women’s health and Climate Change.
It was troublesome to reach this position, and maybe I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t fought so hard to acquire it. I would have gotten married just like other girls of my community if I had followed the footpaths of my background.
I am a small-town girl, and I come from an orthodox background. My family believed that their daughters should be married at a very young age, and they should not allow them to study after the 10th standard. They follow abandoned traditions and customs and draw a massive line between their sons and daughters, even in the field of education.
For example, boys were allowed to study in Private English medium schools whereas parents sent girls to Govt. Urdu medium only. They were permitted to go out and make their decisions, but little freedom for girls was a matter of concern. It was immensely struggling for girls to get proper education and a job was out of the question. Parents and relatives only told them to do housework. Families and society didn’t care about their education, skill development, and self-dependency.
It was similar in my case too. I belonged to a lower-middle-class family, and my father was the only earning member of the family. My mother was not allowed to go out to work and earn as it was against the norms of our society. Relatives always ignored us in our family functions because of our financial status. They never respected my parents and never treated us equally. Once, my uncle invited all esteemed guests and other family members to his retirement party, but he didn’t invite us.
At that point, I was mature enough to understand the reason behind this discrimination. That’s why I decided to get educated and earn money. So my family could get the respect they deserved.
Post 10th standard, people from my background wanted me to sit home, learn household chores and marry as soon as possible. However, I wasn’t in a mood to do it.
So I requested my parents to let me continue my studies. Somehow, I convinced them. After a lot of brainwashing and judgments, my parents allowed me to continue.
Yet other family members were not satisfied with my parent’s decision, but my father understood me. Then he allowed me to get admission to the school of his choice, where History and Geography were the only subjects. I was interested in studying Maths, but there were no choices other than these two subjects. I didn’t want to argue over it because they let me continue my studies, which was more than enough. They would have dropped the idea had I asked for more.
However, these subjects became beneficial during my masters. I topped in my class with a good percentage, and due to this, I was granted a scholarship. Based on the scholarship, I got admission to the University of Hyderabad. But I did not join due to no help from family in terms of finance.
Again convincing my family was a massive task because shifting away from home was big for them. My family was looking for grooms. They wanted me to get married, but I fought hard and requested a lot from my father to let me do it. I promised to get married after I finished my bachelor’s, and he agreed to support me.
I relocated to Hyderabad, but my family didn’t have enough wealth to fund my education. College authorities promised me a job, and I told my family that I would manage the finances by doing this part-time job. Then my family left the campus after lending 3000 rupees. It was a negligible amount compared to my expenses because 2700 rupees was hostel fees. I was left with mere 300 rupees after paying hostel fees. I utilized the leftover money for food and stationary.
It was tough to manage without any financial support. There were times when I skipped meals straight for five days due to the unavailability of money. I couldn’t buy necessary stuff, and entertainment was out of the question. I avoided going to fancy restaurants, wearing fashionable clothes, or doing things that girls my age used to do. I solely focused on my studies and kept my expenses limited to necessities.
To fund my education, I started working as a social worker with an NGO and my studies. That organization worked for Tobacco control and maintaining the hygiene of slums, and I started helping as a volunteer coordinator.
We were supposed to go to slums twice a week for fieldwork practice as part of the curriculum. During that visit, my friend and I observed the hygiene in horrible slum areas and got curious about their menstrual hygiene practices, so we asked the women of the slum. We were shocked to know that these women use and don’t exchange their clothes during menstruation, which is very unhygienic.
The women of the slum area didn’t know about sanitary pads and took old or waste clothes for their menstruation earlier. To change their mentality and promote safe periods, we registered an NGO called GOOD UNIVERSE and started a project called ‘Happy Bleeding.’ It revolved around the education and distribution of cotton sanitary pads for their happy and healthy menstruation periods. We started teaching young girls who were unaware of their future and lives.
Apart from it, the first year of my graduation was quite challenging. I was an Urdu medium student, and I had recently switched to English medium. I wasn’t proficient enough to comprehend the language and write in it.
However, my hostel friends used to help me during my studies, and with their support and consistent hard work and efforts, I secured the first position in the class. The achievement boosted my morale and filled my heart with more self-confidence. It motivated me, and I decided to continue my work along with my studies. I resumed it until I finished my graduation.
Later, I joined five different organizations that helped people in many different ways, and I felt proud to be a part of them. Life was going great. I was living my dream, working hard to make them come actual overall experiencing my dream life.
Life turned me down when I lost my support system. During the final year of my graduation, I lost my father. It was a sudden death as he attained a heart attack and couldn’t bear it. His death was a massive setback as he was the backbone of my family. He had encouraged me throughout my studies and good deeds. I wanted to achieve a high position, money, and respect only to give my father. My life revolved around him. His death completely broke me up.
After his death, I was clueless about my next step. On one side, I was dealing with the loss, and on another side, people were pressuring me to get married. I didn’t know what to do in that situation. The pain was tough to bear.
I stayed at my home for five days, mourning my father’s death. Then I came back to resume my classes. However, concentration and focus were far away from my reach as I was still dealing with the sudden turn of events. Slowly, I started losing interest in my work. At a point, my manager asked me to either pay enough attention or leave the job.
I wasn’t able to concentrate, so without overthinking, I resigned from my job.
It was the most challenging phase of my life as I was living on my savings. I had become a pessimistic girl who used to sit alone in a dark room. The phase lasted for a few months. Then after grieving a lot, I decided to move on and pick up my battle again. I took an oath to do something meaningful with my life for my father. And also for the sake of those girls suffering from the same problems and difficulties that I have gone through in my life.
I joined my work back, and after a while, I received the Social Achiever’s award for my dedication and contribution. My achievement was featured in a newspaper. The next day, my uncle called me at his house and showed me the newspaper in which it mentioned my name in the front-page headlines. He applauded my achievement and praised me for my hard work, and others followed in his footsteps. I couldn’t believe my ears when it happened because they were always against my education and work. They used to humiliate me for not getting married. Now, the same people were praising my accomplishments.
My uncle blessed me with his wishes. That day, I learned one thing about life: ‘If you fight for your rights, you will have the chance to live life on your terms. You will be able to achieve anything in your life.’ After that moment, I never looked back.
I continued my work even during this Covid pandemic. Along with my companions, I used to help people by providing basic amenities like food, medication, money, etc. We helped people in need. They contacted us by using social media, or directly they called us on the available numbers, and we tried our best to reach and help everyone.
I want to rest my story here, but before ending, I want to say that ‘The seeds of success in every nation on the Earth are best planted in women and children.’ So educate your girl, and that girl will later educate the whole society. Lastly, my special message to all the girls is ‘Explore your worth and work upon it because God always helps those who help themselves.’
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