Rabia Faridi

A student of University of Agriculture Faisalabad (UAF), Rabia Faridi received Youth Courage Award 2014 at the United Nations General Assembly on September 22, 2014. She also delivered a Speech on ‘Education & Women Empowerment’ and got the standing ovation from the audience at the United Nations general assembly session

Hailing from a village near Samundri, Rabia Faridi, 24, highlighted the problems of education in Pakistan and urged the developed nations to support Pakistan in its initiatives about education. Rabia Faridi is also a winner of Bargad Youth I-con Award 2014. 

Rabia Faridi is the second Pakistani student invited to speak at the global forum. Rabia, who joined the university debating club learned public speaking and got confidence in herself by interacting with other debaters. She believes the spread of proper and accurate words which can change the ideologies of hard thought about Pakistan and especially about women empowerment. She is also a global youth ambassador on education at the UN.

She condemned the Israeli bombardment on Gaza saying that the brutal act has not taken the lives of many people but also deprived many young girls of education. She vowed to follow in the footprints of the mother of the nation Fatima Jinnah to serve the people and put her every possible effort for the betterment of society.

She is the oldest of nine siblings and is the first girl in her family to go to school. Some of her family members wanted her to quit after matriculation but her father stood by her, who owns two acres land and runs a wood workshop. She passed her intermediate examinations in pre-medical subjects from Government College Samundri. She chose to study agricultural sciences and got admitted to the University of Agriculture Faisalabad where she is an MSc student majoring plant breeding and genetics. She wants to pursue PhD studies and hopes to study abroad.

Rabia Faridi, who is inspired by Muhtarma Fatima Jinnah, delivered a speech on women’s education at the Convention Centre in Islamabad where UN Special Envoy for Global Education and former British prime minster Gordon Brown was the chief guest. A young, passionate, adorable speaker Rabia Faridi, whose debates are paving new dimensions not only for her personal fame but spreading soft image of Pakistan throughout the world.

Currently, Rabia is working on a campaign to enrol out of school and dropouts to schools. She believes that militancy and intolerance can be countered through good education. Also, education is the key to deal with different challenges at individual, community, national and international level.

Rabia believes that the menace of unemployment, extremism, denial to human rights etc can be rooted out through education. She showed her commitment to work for the women education especially under-privileged areas so that they can shoulder their responsibilities effectively for the development and prosperity. She says, Islam teaches us to read.