By Preeti Yadav, 14, a student in India with our partner Sahas Foundation

Girls have right to education, and they should be allowed to study just as boys, so that they can achieve their dreams. And if somebody does anything wrong, then we can teach them a lesson. This happened when our school was closed for vacation; there was bhagwat (a religious gathering where a saint talks about gods and their teachings) going on.

I asked my grandmother, “Can I go and fill the kalash (a practice where a pot is filled with water from a nearby river.) She said that girls can’t go that far to fill the kalash. So, I can’t go to the river to fill the water because it is far away, (previously) I can’t be sent to the school because it is far away. If a boy would have asked, no one would have refused them. This is one of the cases where rights of girls are taken away.

Thanks to Sahas, I got to go back to school. I’m in 7th class.

Preeti’s essay was also published in the September 2024 edition of The Girl Gazette, a biannual publication of artwork, poetry, and essays by girls in the She’s the First partner coalition.