Breaking stereotypes: taking TEDx to rural India: Masarat Daud at TEDxJerusalem

Masarat Daud shares her journey to bring TEDx to a community in India. She talks about what drove her to start TEDx, how she overcame troubles and how TEDxShekhavati has grown. The event turned out to be the largest TEDx event globally.

Have all of you
suffered from TEDx [unclear]

(Laughter)

One of the most
ridiculous questions

that I get to hear from many people
at different times

is "who is superior,
a man or a woman?"

The idea of gender discrimination,
it frustrates me.

It baffles me.

At times, it really
makes me sad.

So, there is almost
divine irony in the fact that

I was born in Rajasthan
which is north west India.

It's a beautiful place

with rich culture,
colors, and history,

but the sad thing is
that a lot of people decided

to stick with a lot of
damaging traditions.

One of the most damaging
from them is the idea

that a woman has a very
belittling place in society.

I go to villages, and one of the things
I see there is

10, 12 year old girls who are
playing outside their house.

Except a few months later
when I go there, I don't see them.

So I asked somebody. I said,
"What happened to them?"

They said, "They've attained
puberty now,

so they are not going to be allowed
to step out of their house."

I see eight year old girls
getting married.

Marriage is not always
the solution as well.

It's not always a guarantee
that your life will now turn out to be ok.

So, this notion which is not just
an Indian thing

I see it outside India as well.

That the dignity of a family or society

lies on the shoulders of women

while a man can get away
with absolutely anything.

I find it very, very
humiliating sometimes.

So, all these ideas put together,

sort of came together to me
when I was growing up.

I grew up in Dubai,
and I live in London now.

When I was growing up,
I learned something.

I learned that we can have
two realities, two different realities.

And, I learned that they can coexist.

Some people have
more than two realities,

which is fine, I guess,
if it works for them.

But, I realized that I was not okay

with these realities
being completely separate.

I wanted to find a way
to bridge them.

I wanted one
to transcend to another.

So, my journey took me
back to India

at the age of 26
3 years ago.

Did you notice how nicely I put my age
in there making me look young?

So 3 years ago,
I went back to India

and I wanted to answer this question

"What is the meaning to my life?"

I have the luxury to travel
to education.

"What is the point of all of this?"

I started doing work
in the field of education.

When I was doing that,

I thought what if we do
a TEDx event in the village.

It will be really fascinating.
I've been to TED events.

I love the whole atmosphere.
It's fabulous.

I was thinking
"Can this work in a village?"

"Can we get the same feeling
that all of you are feeling here today?"

"Can I get the same thing
in a rural context?"

So, I was in this idealistic trance,

and I thought you wanna do
something good for people

they're gonna welcome you.

So in 2010, I decided
I wanted to organize a TEDx event.

My TEDx event is called
TEDxShekhavati.

I started running into problems.

Some of them, things
that I got to hear, were

"Because you're a woman
organizing this event

it's a bad thing.
It's against our religion.

You are corrupting
[the moral] fabric of our society."

And after all of that,
after working on this for like a year,

7 days before the event, they finally say,
"Okay, how do we stop her?".

They tell me, "if you
wanna go on stage,

you have to wear niqab
to cover your face."

I said, "No! Because I wear
the burkha for myself.

I don't wear it for other people."

I don't like the idea
of wearing a niqab on stage

and talking to the same people
without it.

So, after I refuse this,
they say,

"Well, we're taking away the venue.

We're not going to let
you do the event on that venue."

So, I had 300 people,
had speakers coming in,

and I didn't have a place for them.

In a couple of days, I managed
to organize another ground.

By then, I was so demotivated
that I thought,

"I'll have 20 people. It's okay.
We will just have a nice time."

And, on the day of the event,

we had 1,200 people
who came for this conference.

(Applause)

So, the next year 2011, I thought
this time I'll pick a school.

I took a school which is a school
for Harijans.

Harijians are
the untouchable people in India.

They are not untouchable because they
have got an illness or something,

but because they come
from the lowest caste.

They are stuck in the cycle of poverty,
can never get out of it.

They are denied
education as well.

So, that school is
almost a 100 years old.

It has slowly become a school
where poor children go.

So, when I went to the school, this was
one of the classrooms in the school.

What we did with that school,

-- I went to that school recently and
couldn't recognize it's the same school--

We built toilets. So, finally there were
toilets in the school after a 100 years.

We painted the school.

On the day of the event,
I remember

we had 5,000 people
who came for this TEDxShekhavati.

(Applause)

Some of the really good outcomes
from [this].

The 1st one was youth leadership
to groom youth leadership in villages.

So, what I did was
I had an idea of the event,

what I wanted to be like.

I took a guy and girl who I've taught
through my other education initiatives

I told them "This is the work that needs
to be done. Now, you do it your way."

They went and made
teams and sub teams.

Basically, what this event looks like
was created by them.

So, the women went house to house
telling people about the event

'cause we don't have social media.

People don't really, completely rely
on newspapers.

So, the women
went to the beauty parlor.

And, they spoke
to the main lady there.

So, when she was threading eye brows,
she was like,

"So have you heard of TEDxShekhavati."

That's how everybody
got to hear about the event.

There was a woman who came to me
after this conference.

She said, "I'm so impressed

that I have enrolled
5 of my daughters in the school."

One of my favorite moments
actually is

that one of our speakers, she spoke
about women's rights.

-- Sorry, that's the school

that's what it looked like
from outside. --

So, one of the speakers,

she spoke about women's rights
and place of a woman in society.

I didn't have any woman who came to me
and said, "That's really good."

I had so many guys and men
who came to me and said,

"I'm so glad.
That had to be said."

So, when I looked at all of this,

I feel that TEDxShekhavati
is just the beginning

to change a mind-set
that is hundreds of years old.

It's very, very difficult,
it's not easy.

And, it's not going to change
in 2 years.

But, what TEDxShekhavati has done
is that it is a window of change

to not only the incredible changes
happening in India, but around the world.

I feel very stubborn in bringing this
to my people [and] to my community.

A lot of people asked me
"How did you do this?

How did you face
all these problems?"

When I look back, I have just one
and that's my true answer

and I tell them, "What you are seeing is
the oppositions and problems.

But when I was there,
I couldn't see them.

The only thing that I could see
was a time when people were happy,

they were positive
and they were open-minded.

I feel after everything
eventually

this is what makes
all the difference.

Thank you.

(Applause)