\n<\/p>\n
W<\/span>hen Naushaba Roonjho became the first girl anyone in her district knew to have passed Pakistan\u2019s national secondary school exam, the news was not celebrated. At home, in her village of Sheikh Soomar in southern Sindh, her father told her: \u201cThis is enough, you don\u2019t need to study more. You should stay at home now.\u201d<\/p>\n It was 2010 and Roonjho was 17; within weeks she was married, to Muhammad Uris, a labourer. Although, like all the girls in Thatta district, she had left school after primary, Roonjho had kept up her studies independently.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople mocked me,\u201d Roonjho says. \u201cThey said girls don\u2019t need education and get spoiled if they study.\u201d<\/p>\n My parents stopped talking to me for two years. They didn\u2019t accept that I wanted to study or become something in lifeNaushaba Roonjho<\/p>\n In the early years of her marriage, she dedicated herself to raising her children, stretching her husband\u2019s income to feed them all, and doing household chores. The couple lived with her parents, but when Roonjho saw an advert for a national rural development programme that was looking to train community workers, she applied.<\/p>\n Going door to door as a health worker was seen as shameful. Some accused her of dishonouring her family.<\/p>\n By 2019, the conflict reached a breaking point. Her family told her to stop working or leave the house. Roonjho and Uris chose to leave, and with their savings the couple built a single-room home of their own. The separation hardened her resolve rather than weakening it and she had the full support of her husband.<\/p>\n \u201cMy parents stopped talking to me for two years. They didn\u2019t accept that I wanted to study or become something in life.\u201d<\/p>\n But working on vaccination drives and health hygiene initiatives around her district, Roonjho saw the need in her community.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople don\u2019t wash their hands after using the bathroom or before eating. There are no midwives, and many women don\u2019t know the danger signs during childbirth.\u201d In Pakistan, the maternal mortality rate is 155 deaths per 100,000 live births, a drop from 178 a decade earlier but still far above the UN\u2019s goal of 70 by 2030.<\/p>\n <\/span>Community health workers teach mothers about nutrition as part of a Unicef programme.<\/span> Photograph: Rizwan Tabassum\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201cSome families closed the door on me,\u201d she says. \u201cDuring polio vaccination they said don\u2019t give this to the children and considered the vaccination fake.\u201d<\/p>\n Her husband faced daily taunts. \u201cPeople mocked me more than they mocked her,\u201d says Uris. \u201cThey said \u2018Don\u2019t you feel ashamed? Your wife is going out working with men.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n He pushed back every time. \u201cI told them, \u2018Whether you respect us or not, we will continue doing good. I\u2019ll always stay with her.\u2019 Both of us are educated. We passed the matric [secondary-school exam],\u201d he says. \u201cOur thinking is different from the villagers.\u201d<\/p>\n The couple started working on improving girls\u2019 education in the village, Roonjho going door to door.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were no girls in the school,\u201d he says, talking about the Sheikh Soomar government school, a school that \u2013 on paper \u2013 exists for boys and girls, but had no functioning space for girls.<\/p>\n She never asked for anything for herself, she worked for other women. That\u2019s real leadershipZulfiqar Kalhoro, Sindh Rural Support Organisation<\/p>\n \u201cShe went to each house, talked and convinced the parents, five or six girls started going.\u201d Eventually, seven <\/strong>enrolled, including their own two daughters.<\/p>\n \u201cFor us, that is a very big number,\u201d says Uris. \u201cBecause before her, not even one girl was in school.\u201d<\/p>\n The Sindh Rural Support Organisation (SRSO) is a development body established to help build local leadership. Through their model, villages form local support organisations (LSOs), community-run groups that coordinate local development and mobilise women at the grassroots. \u201cI was part of that,\u201d Roonjho says. \u201cI became the president of the LSO. I worked in family planning, polio vaccination and health initiatives.\u201d<\/p>\n Zulfiqar Kalhoro, the CEO of SRSO, says women such as Roonjho are central to rural change. \u201cWe bring women together to form community organisations,\u201d he says. \u201cThe leadership comes from within the village.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>An SRSO team conducts a polio awareness session.<\/span> Photograph: Courtesy of SRSO<\/p>\n For him, Roonjho stood out early. \u201cShe never asked for anything for herself, she worked for other women. That\u2019s real leadership.\u201d According to Kalhoro, the impact is visible across rural Sindh. \u201cToday, most families are educating their daughters, and women leaders like Roonjho make that possible.\u201d<\/p>\n Raasti, 19, is a polio vaccinator who has been working with Roonjho, and views her as a mentor. \u201cI look up to her as a strong woman,\u201d she says. \u201cSeeing her work for education and health makes me feel good and feel like change is possible. She works with dedication and honesty. I admire that she goes beyond her means to achieve her goals.\u201d<\/p>\n As her next step, Roonjho enrolled in a disaster-preparedness programme on the Indus River. \u201cWe were taught what to do when there are floods, how to keep property documents safe, how to protect ourselves,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n This work helped her develop the confidence to speak in meetings and negotiate with officials, experiences that now define her next move. Roonjho, now 33, has her sights on elections in 2027, running for political office in the local authority. And she will have her village behind her, says Manzoor Ali, a 60-year-old elder. He says the transformation of Sheikh Soomar is the clearest change to the communityhe has ever witnessed. \u201cShe has done so much for this village without even having a seat in politics,\u201d he says. \u201cIf she gets a seat, she will do even more.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople here were being simple-minded,\u201d he says. \u201cThey thought girls would get spoiled or leave the family.\u201d But watching Roonjho go house to house, he says, the change has been remarkable. \u201cNow I don\u2019t think there is a single house with a daughter who isn\u2019t sending her to school,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cIf more women go out, learn, and take part in decisions, everything in this village will improve, and I would be very happy to see that.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Women at an International Women\u2019s Day parade in Hyderabad, Sindh province.<\/span> Photograph: Shakeel Ahmed\/Anadolu Agency\/Getty Images<\/p>\n In Pakistan, the lowest tier of government is the union council (UC), which oversees basic services at neighbourhood level. \u201cThe UC chairman doesn\u2019t do anything,\u201d says Roonjho. \u201cFor years, we have asked for clean water, electricity and roads. Nothing happens.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI will stand for UC chairman,\u201d she says. \u201cI want to solve these problems. I want to be the voice for poor people.\u201d<\/p>\n She has already begun visiting households, laying the groundwork for her political campaign.<\/p>\n \u201cMy biggest wish is that my daughters study and live with respect,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cI wasn\u2019t allowed to study,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I will make sure no girl in this village grows up hearing those same words.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When Naushaba Roonjho became the first girl anyone in her district knew to have passed Pakistan\u2019s national secondary school exam, the news was not celebrated. At home, in her village of Sheikh Soomar in southern Sindh, her father told her: \u201cThis is enough, you don\u2019t need to study more. You should stay at home now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39990,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[2233,918,1935,1123,5261,188,5922,6843,3787],"class_list":{"0":"post-39989","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-allowed","9":"tag-development","10":"tag-girl","11":"tag-global","12":"tag-hears","13":"tag-study","14":"tag-village","15":"tag-wasnt","16":"tag-words"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}