Moni Kannaujia, Priya Dubey and Preeti Rawat were part of a team presenting at Digital Media and Learning Conference, Los Angeles.

A team of 14 Prerna Girls was previously part of OneMinutesJr Initiative by UNICEF, as part of the program the girls created one minute issue based films. These films have been screened across the world and have also won international awards. Moni Kannaujia, Priya Dubey and Preeti Rawat have screened their short films from OneMinuteJr as part of their presentation at Digital Media and Learning Conference.

An article published on June 19, 2015 in Hindustan Times, Lucknow Edition; 

Intermediate results for Prerna Girls School (National Institute of Open Schooling) have been declared for the year 2015. 18 Prerna girls appeared in the 2015 examination, we are proud to announce a 100% result with each girl scoring an aggregate above 60. We stand together to congratulate our girls for a job well done !

Aggregate percentage of Prerna Girls 2015 cohort stands 70.7%

The article was originally featured at Women’s Feature Service. Mehru Jaffer is a journalist and a well known author. Mehru Jaffer on the launch of the book Poetry of Purpose in Lucknow .Her words and her experience with the Prerna Girls.

Laxmi, Khushboo, Sunita, Kunti, Rama and Aarti confidently walked up on stage, picked up the microphone and spoke about their lives, experiences, struggles and aspirations in front a packed audience. One after another, each young woman animatedly talked about her family, how she had learnt to deal with crushing poverty and gender bias and strike out against illiteracy and violence to create a secure space for her. Above all, they loudly declared how they felt they were equal to the men in their families and in society; that nothing could stop them from fulfilling their dreams. Amidst an inspired, encouraging crowd a woman looked on proudly; she knew her work with them was now complete. It’s been nearly two decades since Dr Urvashi Sahni started a school for girls from impoverished families in Lucknow to “enable them to take a feminist stance in their lives from an early age in order to discover who they are and understand the oppression they face in their daily lives”. Today, through drama, digital stories and music, in addition to regular lessons, 700 youngsters, who usually go back home to an exploited mother, an alcoholic father and vagabond siblings, are learning to “to resist discrimination and rise above it”.“I realized I had been given skills but was not taught how to use the skills for myself. I was not taught that I have the right to my own life. Over time, I concluded that education should really be about this, about discovering one’s self.

It used to be that, in many parts of the world, educating a girl was not only a low priority but was prevented by social customs or economic pressures. Now, in areas such as sub-Saharan Africa, India and war-torn areas such as Syria, girls are beginning to get a secondary school, and sometimes even, a college education. On this edition of America Abroad, we will celebrate the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the young Pakistani woman who is an activist for female education (Malala Yousafzai) and hear the reactions to that award from girls and women in oppressed places including Pakistan. We have a report of a girl in rural India who suffered brutal beatings by her father but clung to her desire to get an education. We’ll hear first-person reports of girls in Kenya who resisted their families’ efforts to sell them off as a child bride so that they could get an education. And we’ll examine the value of madrassas in educating girls in places like sub-Saharan Africa.