WEBVTT

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While preparing for my talk

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I was reflecting on my life
and trying to figure out

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where exactly was that moment
when my journey began.

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A long time passed by,
and I simply couldn't figure out

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the beginning or the middle
or the end of my story.

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I always used to think that my beginning

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was one afternoon in my community
when my mother had told me

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that I had escaped three
arranged marriages by the time I was two.

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Or one evening when electricity had failed
for eight hours in our community,

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and my dad sat, surrounded by all of us,

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telling us stories of when he was
a little kid struggling to go to school

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while his father, who was a farmer,
wanted him to work in the fields with him.

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Or that dark night when I was 16

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when three little kids had come to me
and they whispered in my ear

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that my friend was murdered
in something called the honor killings.

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But then I realized that,

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as much as I know that these moments
have contributed on my journey,

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they have influenced my journey

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but they have not been
the beginning of it,

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but the true beginning of my journey
was in front of a mud house

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in upper Sindh of Pakistan,

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where my father held the hand
of my 14-year-old mother

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and they decided
to walk out of the village

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to go to a town where they could
send their kids to school.

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In a way, I feel like my life

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is kind of a result of some wise choices
and decisions they've made.

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And just like that,
another of their decisions

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was to keep me and my siblings
connected to our roots.

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While we were living in a community
I fondly remember as called Ribabad,

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which means community of the poor,

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my dad made sure that we also
had a house in our rural homeland.

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I come from an indigenous tribe
in the mountains of Balochistan

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called Brahui.

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Brahui, or Brohi, means mountain dweller,
and it is also my language.

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Thanks to my father's very strict rules
about connecting to our customs,

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I had to live a beautiful life of songs, 
cultures, traditions, stories, mountains,

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and a lot of sheep.

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But then, living in two extremes

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between the traditions 
of my culture, of my village,

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and then modern education
in my school wasn't easy.

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I was aware that I was the only girl
who got to have such freedom,

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and I was guilty of it.

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While going to school
in Karachi and Hyderabad,

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a lot of my cousins and childhood friends
were getting married off,

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some to older men, some in exchange,

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some even as second wives.

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I got to see the beautiful tradition
and its magic fade in front of me

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when I saw that the birth of a girl child
was celebrated with sadness,

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when women were told
to have patience as their main virtue.

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Up until I was 16,

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I healed my sadness by crying,

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mostly at nights 
when everyone would sleep

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and I would sob in my pillow,

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until that one night 
when I found out my friend was killed

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in the name of honor.

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Honor killings is a custom

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where men and women
are suspected of having relationships

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before or outside of the marriage,

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and they're killed by their family for it.

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Usually the killer is the brother
or father or the uncle in the family.

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The U.N. reports there are about 1,000
honor murders every year in Pakistan,

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and these are only the reported cases.

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A custom that kills
did not make any sense to me,

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and I knew I had to do
something about it this time.

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I was not going to cry myself to sleep.

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I was going to do something,
anything, to stop it.

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I was 16 -- I started writing poetry

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and going door to door
telling everybody about honor killings

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and why it happens,
why it should be stopped,

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and raising awareness about it

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until I actually found a much, much 
better way to handle this issue.

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In those days, we were living in
a very small, one-roomed house in Karachi.

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Every year, during the monsoon seasons,
our house would flood up with water --

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rainwater and sewage --

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and my mom and dad
would be taking the water out.

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In those days, my dad brought home
a huge machine, a computer.

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It was so big it looked as if it was going
to take up half of the only room we had,

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and had so many pieces and wires
that needed to be connected.

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But it was still the most exciting thing

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that has ever happened
to me and my sisters.

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My oldest brother Ali got to be in charge
of taking care of the computer,

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and all of us were given
10 to 15 minutes every day to use it.

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Being the oldest of eight kids,

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I got to use it the last,

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and that was after
I had washed the dishes,

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cleaned the house,
made dinner with my mom,

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and put blankets on the floor
for everyone to sleep,

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and after that, 
I would run to the computer,

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connect it to the Internet,

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and have pure joy and wonder
for 10 to 15 minutes.

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In those days, I had discovered
a website called Joogle.

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[Google] (Laughter)

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In my frantic wish
to do something about this custom,

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I made use of Google
and discovered Facebook,

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a website where people can connect
to anyone around the world,

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and so, from my very tiny,
cement-roofed room in Karachi,

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I connected with people in the U.K.,
the U.S., Australia and Canada,

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and created a campaign called

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WAKE UP Campaign
against Honor Killings.

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It became enormous
in just a few months.

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I got a lot of support
from all around the world.

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Media was connecting to us.

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A lot of people were reaching out
trying to raise awareness with us.

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It became so big that it went from online
to the streets of my hometown,

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where we would do rallies and strikes

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trying to change the policies 
in Pakistan for women's support.

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And while I thought
everything was perfect,

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my team -- which was basically
my friends and neighbors at that time --

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thought everything was going so well,

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we had no idea a big opposition
was coming to us.

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My community stood up against us,

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saying we were spreading
un-Islamic behavior.

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We were challenging centuries-old
customs in those communities.

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I remember my father receiving
anonymous letters

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saying, "Your daughter 
is spreading Western culture

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in the honorable societies."

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Our car was stoned at one point.

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One day I went to the office
and found our metal signboard

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wrinkled and broken as if a lot of people
had been hitting it with something heavy.

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Things got so bad that I had
to hide myself in many ways.

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I would put up the windows of the car,

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veil my face, not speak
while I was in public,

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but eventually situations got worse
when my life was threatened,

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and I had to leave, back to Karachi,
and our actions stopped.

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Back in Karachi, as an 18-year-old,

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I thought this was the biggest
failure of my entire life.

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I was devastated.

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As a teenager, I was blaming
myself for everything that happened.

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And it turns out,
when we started reflecting,

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we did realize that it was actually
me and my team's fault.

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There were two big reasons
why our campaign had failed big time.

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One of those, the first reason,

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is we were standing
against core values of people.

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We were saying no to something
that was very important to them,

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challenging their code of honor,

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and hurting them deeply in the process.

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And number two, which was very
important for me to learn,

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and amazing, and surprising
for me to learn,

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was that we were not including
the true heroes

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who should be fighting for themselves.

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The women in the villages had no idea
we were fighting for them in the streets.

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Every time I would go back,

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I would find my cousins and friends
with scarves on their faces,

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and I would ask, "What happened?"

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And they'd be like, 
"Our husbands beat us."

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But we are working in the streets for you!

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We are changing the policies.

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How is that not impacting their life?

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So then we found out something
which was very amazing for us.

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The policies of a country

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do not necessarily always affect
the tribal and rural communities.

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It was devastating -- like, oh,
we can't actually do something about this?

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And we found out there's a huge gap

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when it comes to official policies
and the real truth on the ground.

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So this time, we were like,
we are going to do something different.

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We are going to use strategy,

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and we are going to go back and apologize.

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Yes, apologize.

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We went back to the communities

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and we said we are 
very ashamed of what we did.

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We are here to apologize, and in fact,
we are here to make it up to you.

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How do we do that?

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We are going to promote
three of your main cultures.

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We know that it's music,
language, and embroidery.

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Nobody believed us.

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Nobody wanted to work with us.

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It took a lot of convincing
and discussions with these communities

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until they agreed that we are going
to promote their language

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by making a booklet of their stories,
fables and old tales in the tribe,

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and we would promote their music

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by making a CD of the songs
from the tribe, and some drumbeating.

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And the third, which was my favorite,

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was we would promote their embroidery
by making a center in the village

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where women would come every day
to make embroidery.

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And so it began.

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We worked with one village,
and we started our first center.

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It was a beautiful day.

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We started the center.

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Women were coming to make embroidery,

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and going through a life-changing
process of education,

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learning about their rights,
what Islam says about their rights,

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and enterprise development,
how they can create money,

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and then how they can create
money from money,

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how they can fight the customs
that have been destroying their lives

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from so many centuries,

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because in Islam, in reality,

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women are supposed to be
shoulder to shoulder with men.

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Women have so much status
that we have not been hearing,

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that they have not been hearing,

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and we needed to tell them
that they need to know

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where their rights are
and how to take them by themselves,

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because they can do it and we can't.

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So this was the model which actually
came out -- very amazing.

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Through embroidery
we were promoting their traditions.

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We went into the village.
We would mobilize the community.

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We would make a center inside
where 30 women will come

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for six months to learn about
value addition of traditional embroidery,

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enterprise development,
life skills and basic education,

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and about their rights
and how to say no to those customs

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and how to stand as leaders
for themselves and the society.

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After six months, we would connect
these women to loans and to markets

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where they can become
local entrepreneurs in their communities.

NOTE Paragraph

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We soon called this project Sughar.

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Sughar is a local word used
in many, many languages in Pakistan.

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It means skilled and confident women.

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I truly believe, to create women leaders,
there's only one thing you have to do:

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Just let them know that they have
what it takes to be a leader.

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These women you see here,

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they have strong skills
and potential to be leaders.

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All we had to do was remove
the barriers that surrounded them,

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and that's what we decided to do.

NOTE Paragraph

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But then while we were thinking
everything was going well,

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once again everything was fantastic,

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we found our next setback:

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A lot of men started seeing
the visible changes in their wife.

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She's speaking more,
she's making decisions --

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oh my gosh, she's handling 
everything in the house.

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They stopped them
from coming to the centers,

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and this time, we were like,
okay, time for strategy two.

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We went to the fashion 
industry in Pakistan

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and decided to do research
about what happens there.

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Turns out the fashion industry in Pakistan
is very strong and growing day by day,

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but there is less contribution
from the tribal areas

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and to the tribal areas, especially women.

NOTE Paragraph

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So we decided to launch our first ever
tribal women's very own fashion brand,

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which is now called Nomads.

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And so women started earning more,

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they started contributing more
financially to the house,

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and men had to think again
before saying no to them

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when they were coming to the centers.

NOTE Paragraph

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(Applause)

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Thank you, thank you.

NOTE Paragraph

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In 2013, we launched our first
Sughar Hub instead of a center.

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We partnered with TripAdvisor

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and created a cement hall
in the middle of a village

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and invited so many other organizations
to work over there.

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We created this platform
for the nonprofits

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so they can touch and work
on the other issues

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that Sughar is not working on,

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which would be an easy place 
for them to give trainings,

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use it as a farmer school,
even as a marketplace,

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and anything they want to use it for,

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and they have been doing really amazingly.

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And so far, we have been able
to support 900 women

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in 24 villages around Pakistan.

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(Applause)

NOTE Paragraph

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But that's actually not what I want.

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My dream is to reach out
to one million women in the next 10 years,

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and to make sure that happens,

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this year we launched
Sughar Foundation in the U.S.

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It is not just going to fund Sughar
but many other organizations in Pakistan

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to replicate the idea

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and to find even more innovative ways

00:13:45.760 --> 00:13:49.591
to unleash the rural women's
potential in Pakistan.

NOTE Paragraph

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Thank you so much.

NOTE Paragraph

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(Applause)

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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

NOTE Paragraph

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Chris Anderson: Khalida, you are
quite the force of nature.

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I mean, this story, in many ways,
just seems beyond belief.

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It's incredible that someone
so young could do achieve this much

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through so much force and ingenuity.

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So I guess one question:

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This is a spectacular dream to reach out
and empower a million women --

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how much of the current 
success depends on you,

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the force of this magnetic personality?

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How does it scale?

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Khalida Brohi: I think my job
is to give the inspiration out,

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give my dream out.

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I can't teach how to do it, because
there are so many different ways.

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We have been experimenting
with three ways only.

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There are a hundred different ways
to unleash potential in women.

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I would just give the inspiration
and that's my job.

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I will keep doing it.
Sughar will still be growing.

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We are planning to reach out
to two more villages,

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and soon I believe 
we will be scaling out of Pakistan

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into South Asia and beyond.

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CA: I love that when you talked
about your team in the talk,

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I mean, you were all 18 at the time.

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What did this team look like?

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This was school friends, right?

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KB: Do people here
believe that I'm at an age

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where I'm supposed
to be a grandmother in my village?

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My mom was married at nine,
and I am the oldest woman not married

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and not doing anything
in my life in my village.

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CA: Wait, wait, wait, not doing anything?

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KB: No.
CA: You're right.

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KB: People feel sorry for me,
a lot of times.

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CA: But how much time are you spending
now actually back in Balochistan?

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KB: I live over there.

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We live between, still,
Karachi and Balochistan.

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My siblings are all going to school.

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I am still the oldest of eight siblings.

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CA: But what you're doing is definitely
threatening to some people there.

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How do you handle safety?
Do you feel safe?

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Are there issues there?

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KB: This question has come to me
a lot of times before,

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and I feel like the word "fear"
just comes to me and then drops,

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but there is one fear that I have
that is different from that.

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The fear is that if I get killed,
what would happen to the people

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who love me so much?

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My mom waits for me till late at night
that I should come home.

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My sisters want to learn so much from me,

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and there are many, many girls
in my community who want to talk to me

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and ask me different things,

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and I recently got engaged. (Laughs)

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(Applause)

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CA: Is he here? You've got to stand up.

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(Applause)

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KB: Escaping arranged marriages,
I chose my own husband

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across the world in L.A.,
a really different world.

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I had to fight for a whole year.
That's totally a different story.

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But I think that's
the only thing that I'm afraid of,

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and I don't want my mom to not see anyone
when she waits in the night.

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CA: So people who want
to help you on their way,

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they can go on, they can maybe
buy some of these clothes

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that you're bringing over

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that are actually made, the embroidery
is done back in Balochistan?

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KB: Yeah.

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CA: Or they can get involved
in the foundation.

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KB: Definitely. We are looking
for as many people as we can,

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because now that the foundation's
in the beginning process,

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I am trying to learn a lot
about how to operate,

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how to get funding
or reach out to more organizations,

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and especially in the e-commerce,
which is very new for me.

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I mean, I am not
a fashion person, believe me.

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CA: Well, it's been incredible
to have you here.

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Please go on being courageous,
go on being smart, and please stay safe.

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KB: Thank you so much.
CA: Thank you, Khalida. (Applause)