TEDxDubai - Masarat Daud - 10/10/09

the question that comes to minds is how long does it take to change a community? how many days does it take? how many hours? when you can quantified that change? our next TEDx speaker Masarat Daud (applause) okay well hello everybody I was just joking with everybody that if I forget something I’m just gonna start singing BackStreet Boys so yeah so I've another OCD of the many OCD's that I have I have to thank people who've done a lot for me especially for this project that I'm gonna speak about the 8 day academy three people James Piecowye, Rasha Lootah and Tauqeer Jamadar (applause) Thank you (applause) so when I start speaking about the 8 day academy or whatever that I've done so everybody tells me like oh my God you're only 26 and you sound like a 35 so if you ignored the weight I am 26 and I love making jokes about the weight by the way so oh my God so I am 26 and I came from a village called Fatehpur which is on the western side of India it is a part of Rajasthan which is basically famous for a lot of it's palaces and so on, this village specifically is famous for the mansions and these are basically people who've painted their life stories on their houses, so everything from their own pictures to child birth or to wars you're going to see that this is one of them as well and these are about 300 years old so the unique thing about this village is that yes I call it a village, but actually when you look at the population it's about 70,000 to 100,000 people whichs makes it a town the unique thing that happened here was in the 70's the men in this village including my father they moved to the gulf they were just a men they went there to find work and so there was a lot of money going back home so they built all these concrete houses, but the infrastructure which was everything from education or.. there no hospitals and clinics everything from the medicine facilities all of it remained on the same level now imagine there's been a population explosion so the concrete houses are there, they're a lot of people are there but the facilities are still there so it's a village kind of in a town's which is really weird, right? these are some of the people who are there what happens in a village or in a small place it that is that the first victims are the women so what happens is for example in Rajhstan you have the highest rate of child marriage you have the highest female illiteracy rate I am the first not the first maybe one of the first female graduates of my village which is why everybody thinks i'm over educated to fit in (applause) maybe I've should said this before you clap, I only have a bachelor degree So, what happens there is for example throughout my childhood I was told you know females should not get education they don't deserve to be educated because they're going to bring shame on the family and a lot of these girls, my mom was married when she was 13 which is good my aunts were married when they were 3 months old and just last month in fact when I was in the village there was a girl who got married she was 8 yrs old and she was sent to the husband's house as well so there a lot of these kind of problems that you go and see them and you come back and you just don't know if this is reality or if the reality what you just saw 3 hours back this is one of the schools that I've been to and what happens, okay now the other thing is the education system you have people sitting on roofs and all of that this was the reason of why 8 Day academy was formed what is the 8 Day academy? it is basically my view of education system and I completely agree with Ian and Sir Ken Robinson and everybody else who hates education system and I’m not just speaking about the UAE one I’m speaking about the global education system I think personally that the education system has failed all of us because how many of us during high school, during university we’ve been studying and we know that there’s a huge disconnect between what we’re studying in a little shell and when we actually go out to the real world so as urbanites, if the education system has failed all of us how do you expect this education system to do anything for rural villages India has the dream of achieving 100% literacy but it cant do that with an education system that is a failure so comes the 8 Day academy which is my philosophy of functional education an education that functions, I don’t need to wait for 4 yrs before I get my degree that I need to start doing something with my life but 8 days and I get moving so what I did was I did an 8 day academy, the first one to escape a really crappy job that paid me really well ridiculously well, but it just tried to kill my spirit you know, strangle it and I thought oh my God what do I do I ran away to the village and went to taught them computers in exactly a week there's 17 people who never seen a computer before and exactly a week later, they’re all using Microsoft word, paint and they know the theory of computers (applause) and then when I went back 3-4 months later to see what they’re doing with it they have computerized the school records these 17 people then went on to teach a 100 students so that six times more people and these 100 students are going back to their parents and teaching them computers I went back again in June-July, which was I think it’s one of the biggest mistakes of my life because I went in the summer in a really kind of a desert region and in a month time I probably got about 3 nights of sleep and I thought oh god I can't save the world I can't do this and especially the worst part that I was dealing with children now I don’t really like them is a nice way of saying it well you know if they’re not your own children you can't do anything to them (crowd laughs) I meant hit them, so .. and I work with children and I work with these village teachers on to giving them public speaking and giving them public communication skills and these are some of the images you’re seeing some of the children who participated in that and there’s been so many beautiful stories, so touching I mean there’s one guy who came to me he was 23 yrs old and he looked 35 not because he was big but because he just looked 35 and he come to me and he told me that "I met you at a time when" I mean he was forced to run away from his village because of family disputes and he ran all the way when his family came when he didn’t have a shirt on his back, didn’t have a shoe and he said " I was on the brim of committing suicide" "but its amazing how 8 days have entirely changed my perspective of life" "and of what I can do with myself" this girl, her name is Fallak they were so many stories but I’m gonna tell you hers she’s 18 yrs old, and she’s been a school teacher from the time she was 15 her father passed away when she was 15 yrs old so on day 1 of the academy she was sitting with me and they were actually 12 of us in the room and I said well just come and tell me why you’re scared to speak and she just start crying and she just couldn’t talk and this was just the 12 of us day 8 she is on the stage in front of 150-200 people just talking about herself and I just wanna play a little video so you get an idea of what I’m talking about and remember this picture because we’ll come back to it technology glitch sound (applause) there are no tailor-made 8 days courses you know it’s not just computers or english or anything it’s just you walk into any community you see what problems they have I created 8 day structure and we just go out and teach so someone saw and read a bit about what I was doing and got in touch with me and this is the first time that I wanna make this announcement at the TEDx Dubai stage 5 days from today in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir there’s going to be an 8 day academy taught by someone else to women was the picture that you saw on health, nutrition and inspiring women and in January we’re teaching children creative thinking we’re working with slump people so it’s just 8 day academy mobilizing education education going to different villages and different people and all it needs is 8 days for you to make that choice be a part of the academy and change your life so you don’t need to wait for months and years and weeks and everything all you need is 8 days to change the world Thank you (applaus)