I Am Unbreakable

Thank you for doing this, I don't actually know that much about you I just felt like you would be amazing and I didn't really know why. Sometimes things just happen because they have to happen. And the point as the Bay. Maybe this is an opportunity for me to speak to a bigger audience. Today and this is an opportunity for me. to convey my message to more people than I have done before in during many many years of my work because as many people will be aware of my story that much it will be easier for me to transform more lives because I'm working from the rural areas of Pakistan and it is very difficult for me to access the international community.
So this is a great opportunity that you're going to give me today. Oh, I think we're probably more blessed. So where are you now and what are you doing? I am in a village of Punjab province of Pakistan. Its name is Arup. And here we have a school where we are giving free education to 200 underprivileged children, 10 years free education. We also have a women's skills learning center where they are learning stitching, embroidery, makeup, IT education, self-defense techniques, art, and they are very kind friends overseas like from India and America and Europe who teach them science and health and many other subjects that they think that the woman, even the women who are living in the rural areas of in a country like Pakistan, they should also be aware of this.
So here we are not only giving formal education and skills training to the women, but also we are trying to make them a part of the international community.

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We are giving them an opportunity to have their say through internet. Also, we are helping young women and children, the burn victims, to have free treatment. So these are the things that we are doing here under the platform of this organization. The burn victims. Tell me about the burn victims. Sometimes such incidents happen, like sometimes it can happen but in some cases because Pakistan is one of the countries where women become victims of honor killing in many cases.
So sometime they're in-laws, they try to burn them alive or they try to commit suicide or sometimes It just happened. Why does it just happen? What makes something like this happen? Let me give you an example. There was a student of mine. Her name is Meera. She was nine years old and she had five younger siblings. And because her father is a drug addict, he doesn't do anything. Her mother works at some place.
And when they go back to home, they have nobody to take care of them or to cook anything. So this nine years old girl, she was cooking food after going back from school for her siblings. And she got third degree burns because she was a child and fire just caught her dress and she couldn't make it to get rid of that. But what her parents did, they thought that maybe she will She'll die and even if she will survive, she's useless.
She cannot get married because getting married for a girl is the main purpose of her life in our country. And what they did, they kept her inside one room in a dark room for one month. And then came into my knowledge because those were summer vacations I couldn't, that was the last day of the school when this happened. And she didn't come back to school for a few weeks. And then I went to her home.
Her family didn't allow me to bring her to the hospital because they wanted her to die. And she was having pus and blood coming out of her wounds. And she was like a skeleton. And I had to fight with them. And I had to tell them that I will go to the police because they were killing their daughter deliberately. And then they allowed me to bring her to the hospital. And after having several surgeries, Now she is better and she has joined the school back.
So sometimes such things happen. So this is what it is. And what is her name? The girl's name. What is her name? My first name. Her name? Her name, the girl. Her name is Meera. And you can see her story on social media also. because I have been publishing about her a lot because I needed help. She needed a lot of surgeries and I didn't have money for that. So thanks to our friends who came forward and they helped us.
So she had many surgeries. Now we have to bring her to hospital again next week because her arm is stuck again and the blood is again coming from the…

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from her belly and chest. I will share her pictures soon. And she is nine? No, she's 11. She's 11. Same age as my daughter. Wow. Sister Zeph, what makes you do this? Well, I was a 13-year-old girl and I had to face some discrimination in my school. a very sensitive girl. And I have seen this discrimination as a girl since I was two and a half years old, because when I was two and a half years old, my mother gave birth to the fourth daughter.
And my uncle, the younger brother of my father, he started beating my mother right there. And I saw the blood was coming from her head to her toe because she gave birth to another daughter. And my uncle brought me on the top of the roof and he tried to, what is that, throw me down because he wanted me to die. He thought that now my mother has four daughters, which mean we are burden on the family.
And I kept seeing this in our society. And when I was 13 years old, an incident happened in my school of discrimination because I belong to a Christian minority and we are only 1.6% here.

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sometimes we have to face a lot of discrimination. So I left my school and I knew that Christianity and every religion, even Islam, Islam is a religion of peace because I have read a lot about Islam. So what I started doing, I started visiting door to door, the village, and I started recruiting the students in the courtyard of my home. And I started are teaching Muslim girls and Christian girls together so that we can not only give ourselves education, the formal education, but we can also become friends with each other and we can create the atmosphere of peace and understanding.
It happened 23 years before. So in 2012, I was having more than 100 students in the courtyard of my home. And then in 2014, I won this Lynn Syms Global Prize from World Pulse, and I won at the prize money of 20,000 USD. So with that money, I made a small building. I bought a small piece of land and built a building over it where we have been teaching girls in shifts and we have been teaching them skills.
But now we have a separate school building, which is a rented building yet. But we also have a small building where we are teaching skills to young women, underprivileged women, and they come from 20 nearby villages and they learn skills from here. And almost 300 young women are learning skills from our school. Well, congratulations. I mean, it seems like too small a word to say for the work that you're doing. I feel like you have told this story before and you tell it very well.

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of what happened and your achievements and what you've done. And however, I want to go back a little bit, all right? And if it's too difficult, you will tell me and we'll skip. So as a young child, you see this happening to your mother. And I'm going to say, I'm going to make up, and you can tell me if I'm incorrect, that maybe many young girls may see this happening. to their mother or their female siblings or grandparents, aunts, of course not uncles.
Now, and many young girls may be very upset about it, but don't necessarily perhaps take the road that you took and do something about it as tangibly as you have done. So take me back to that time and what was going on inside your mind? that made you take this path? I would feel very frustrated and I would feel myself like stuck. I would feel like I was stuck in a cage and I have to break it and I have to come out of that.
So I did it. Although when I was a very young girl, my parents were very angry with me because I decided that I will never go back to a school. and I will teach myself and this is what I did. I kept teaching myself and as a private student, I would take exams. So I did a master's in political science and then master's in history and now I'm doing master's in education.
And that was a very, I mean, I was very unsatisfied child and I was always different. When I was a 13 years old girl, I wrote my first article on women's rights in a very famous newspaper of Pakistan, the Jang newspaper. And it would seem difficult or even impossible because I belong to an underprivileged family. My parents are not educated. We are living in a village. We have been living in a village always.
It was very difficult, but still I found a way to approach to that newspaper. and to make them agree that I have written it very well and it should be published. So it was published. How did you do that? You were 13. I think I believe it that the leaders are not made, they are born. So I was born as a community leader. I was born as a different girl. I was born to make a difference.
I was born to tell other girls that we are not less than men. We are equal human beings, and we just have to realize it. And when I would look at my mother, she's a very brave lady. I mean, despite all those circumstances that she was going through, she has never been to our school, but she wanted us to me and to my sisters to get education. And she has never, ever said this thing that she doesn't have a son.
And if she would have a son, she would have a better life, which women most of the time, actually always they are being taught in our society that if you do not have a son, your husband has a right to marry to another woman. So she didn't feel like insecure. This is what I learned from her. And that's why I think I was able to do it.

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One more thing. Since I was a child, I have always been taking challenges as opportunities because they inspire me to do more and to keep working until I achieve my goal. This is what I do. I can see. Wow. So you were a very unsatisfied child. Yes. Yes. And this unsatisfied child decided to do something about it. And as you said, you feel, you know that you were born to do this work.
And, you know, at 13, you, well, it seems like at many ages, and I'm sure we have just a fraction and glimpse of the story right now. But you were born then into this life where the attitudes towards women are extremely severe, extremely severe. I mean, we are, I'm in the US, I'm originally from the UK. Yes, there are many issues for women, of course, but you are in a part of the world, let's argue, that is one of the most severe for women, the societal belief about the place of women.
Where does it come from? How is it so ingrained? When I think about this and many people ask me this question, I think because when we talk about South Asia, it has always been under control of many nations. Many nations came here and they have ruled this part of the world for thousands of years. And I think when men would feel that they are living like slaves. Being men for their own satisfaction, they started making some rules or some, what is that, they created some cultural norms where they started dominating women.
And for centuries, they have putting this in the minds of the women like they are they are less than men and they have only a few duties to what is that live for the men and they have no their own identification and if they are married then they are successful women and if they are suffering whatever their husband or their in-laws are doing with them but still they are living there they are very successful or pious women and they must have a son because a son will will become their future and their daughters will get married.
They will not remain in the family. So they don't have to give good food to their daughters. They don't have to look after them well, and they do not have to desire for daughters. That's why still when a girl is taking birth, she takes birth in one family.

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they don't, what is that, distribute sweets or they don't celebrate and they think like it is something they should be sad on. I keep saying wow. It feels like an underrated comment. And so this is so deeply ingrained and has been so deeply ingrained for many, many, many, many, many years of course. What needs to change? And I know that the work that you're doing is fundamental to that. In your view, how do we start changing these deeply set views and beliefs?
Education. Education. Not only reading the books and passing the exams, but because it is a very sad thing that still girls go to school because their parents think oh, now the things have changed. So if they get a little education, they will have a better proposal. So what we have to do in the schools, we have to help girls to realize about their, what is that, their guts, their qualities, and they are equal to men and they can do anything.
They must accept this reality that women have the courage and they have the guts to do, to achieve any goal that they want. Also in Pakistan, unluckily, less than 50% girls can go to school still. And we have to create a culture where more girls should go to school. Sometimes the grassroots leaders like me, We have to face so many challenges when we convince families to send their daughters to a school.
And I have devoted my life for this cause. That's why I gave myself the name Sister Zeph. So everybody in the country or all over the world can call me sister, which means I'm sister to everybody. I have no plan to marry. or I will never ever have anybody in my life. And what is that? That's why people trust me and they send their daughters to my school. So we have to, the leaders, I should not say this, but they will have to, what is that, make sacrifices and we have to do

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everything we can in our capacity to bring more girls and boys in the school so that we can create a different generation. And how do you convince the parents? It is very difficult. Sometimes it takes years to convince one family. And just two years before, one of my students, she was killed by her brothers and her father because she they thought that she was talking to a man on phone. So they just killed her.
In such a scenario, when such case happens, people think that their honor is gone. So what they do, the other families, they don't want to send their girls to school. And in such a situation, it is so difficult. I have to… set examples. I have to give them the surety that the girls will be protected here and no man will be allowed in the school or in the skill center. And if this will be necessary, we ourselves will give them pick and drop so they don't have to walk on the road.
And that's why we are teaching our students self-defense techniques so their parents know that they are protected. These are the things because one thing is very strange in our culture that the men think that the girls of other families, they don't respect them and then they expect that the other men should give respect to the women and girls of their family. Men have to learn to start respecting all women. in all girls in the country.
Indeed they do. And so this is an example of an honour killing that you were telling me about. So this young woman was, they thought she was speaking to a boy on the phone and she was killed for that. And then, so the honour was gone from the whole family. So they didn't want to then send the other girls to the school, as I understand what you're saying. So you had to convince them to do that.
And now, now these young girls,

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Tell me about them. What are they like when they get to your school? How are they responding to what you're doing? Of course they like it and they want to stay in school. Of course they like it! Of course they like it, yeah. And they want to stay in school as long as possible because they want free and we give them opportunity to have their say. and we give them opportunity to ask the question.
Because in our culture, they say that if a girl is speaking, if she's giving her opinion, she's not a good girl, she will not be a good wife, which is an ultimate goal of a girl in our culture. So every time she speaks or she wears nice clothes or she make hair or she put on makeup, the woman in her family or in the surrounding area, they will start telling her that it is not good and you will not have a good proposal.
So you should be composed and you should keep yourself covered all the time in order to have a good proposal. But in the school, we give them freedom. We ask them to ask any question and speak and give their opinion on any topic, whatever it is. So of course they like it because they start growing mentally when they come to the school. I imagine that it's like an unleashing, you know? Like they haven't been able to ever do that or ever have permission that it's okay to do that.
So it's wonderful that you're giving them that opportunity. So I want to come back to something that you've said a couple of times, which is the main goal of a girl is to get married, is to have a proposal and to get married.

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This is the main goal of a girl in your culture. And obviously that's very different in many cultures around the world, but we're talking particularly about Pakistan right now. But you are completely counter-cultural. So you said to me earlier that you will never get married and this is your choice and that people trust you more because of that. So tell me about that. Why are they trusting you more because you've made that counter-cultural choice to not get married?
Because I have set an example and I stick, I remain stick with that even now I'm 36 years old and in our culture a girl, a good girl has to get married when she's 18 or 15 or even 14 because we are one of the countries where child marriage is on its high level. And along with that, I give them this proof that I am, even without getting married, I am strong and I am doing what is a difficult thing to do.
Because in our culture, mothers teach their daughters if I'm not at home and somebody is coming to ask you for a pinch of salt. Don't give them because good girls don't give anything to others. They keep everything inside the house. In such a culture, I am giving everything to the people of my area. I'm giving them my time. I'm giving them free education. I'm making them empowered. And along with that, I am I do not, which is not good much in terms of feminism or equality, but I do not allow any man to work in our skill center or school so that the girls feel more protected.
That's why their families trust me more. And if it comes to get married just today, I was having stomach pain and I went to a doctor. We do not have a qualified doctor in the villages. They just have some practice and they come here and they start giving medicines and sometimes in the emergency we have to go there. So I was sitting there in the clinic and one woman came and she started asking my mother, why your daughter is not getting married?
And I was telling my mother, you don't have to mind it, just ignore it because they don't know the importance of our work. So just forget about it. But sometimes my mother gets worried about it because people keep asking her about this question. People keep asking your mother why you haven't still got married. Yes. I mean, actually they force her, they insult her that her daughter is 36 years old and she's still single.
It is bad. They think that I am earning and they are enjoying my income.

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And this is a very bad thing in our culture that your daughters are earning. The daughters are supposed to stay at home. The women are supposed to stay inside house and keep themselves covered and do not have their own identification. And as a result of the work that you're doing with the women and girls at your school, what happens to them? What kind of things do they do when they leave your school?
I'm very glad to inform you. This is something that makes me feel so proud that in just this year, 2020, 11 girls have reached to the college level. After graduating the 10th standard, the 10 standards from our school, they have reached to the college level and they have joined the college. One of the girls, she has She's the first girl in the history of her family who has gone to college. There are girls who have their own beauty salons after completing their training from here.
There are many girls who are doing the work of stitching and they're supporting themselves and their families. Some girls have become nurses, some have joined a police department. And even for that, I have to convince their families to let them do this job. And I had to have what is their sessions with their brothers and their father. And because just last week, a girl, she wanted to do her bachelor's, but her father did not allow her.
And it was a really heartbreaking thing for me because she had to lie her parents because she had to go to the university. She wanted to continue her education and she was not allowed. That's why she had to lie for them just to get education. And then her mother came to my home and she said, convince my daughter to not to continue her studies. And I said, no, I will not convince her.
But instead I started convincing her mother that they should allow their daughter to. And I gave her fee, the university fee, because they could not afford it themselves and her family was not ready. And what her family did that

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took all that money from her. And then I said, OK, I will pay you again, but give me some more time. So now I have to give that money again. This is how things happen. And sometimes it makes me so sad. And almost every other night, I have to cry for one or two hours because this is so much. Every girl, they have very difficult stories. I want to share a small story here. that one of the girl, her elder sister, she got married.
It will be unbelievable for you, but she got married when she was six months old. Why it happened? Because her uncle, he wanted to marry to a girl of his own choice. And according to the, what is that, the culture in their tribe, If he want to marry to the girl of his own choice, they had to exchange another girl, a girl from their own family. And at that time, they were having only this little girl, his niece, six months old.
So they, what is that? That little baby she had to marry to that man. And she was like reserved for him until she was 12 years old. I'm surprised you only cry for an hour or two. Yes, it happens a lot and then because I'm the only one who they come to share their stories and I have to make them feel that I'm strong because if I will make them feel that even I feel sometimes weak, they will feel weaker.
So I cry when I go to bathroom or in my bedroom in the night and then I gather my strength in the morning again and then I start helping them. Do you ever feel angry? Sorry, I didn't want to get emotional but we do not have to give up. We have to keep working. I will keep doing this work until I'm alive and I have the last beat in my heart. I will never give up.
Do you know you said I will continue this work until I'm alive? Yes.

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until I have the last beat in my heart. I like the way you said it. You said something right at the start, which is you wanted to be more vocal and have more of a voice with the international community. And this is a big part of why I put this podcast together, because I wanted more people to know about the amazing things that are happening all over the world for women and girls.
And you are a fantastic example of that. And I think that when you do what you're doing all day, every day, and is as hard as it is for you, as much as you have the achievements that you have, I get the sense that it is never ending. You know, it's never ending. And I wonder how the… What am I trying to say? I wonder how you celebrate your successes. And I think one of the ways that you celebrate your successes is perhaps doing something like this and realizing, oh my goodness, in my 36 years, look at what I have done.
Oh my goodness. You know, from being this young, unsatisfied child. to be able to do what you're doing in this incredibly difficult circumstance. I also wanna say that I can see you, cause we're doing this by video and people will be listening to this purely on audio. But when I look at you, I see such a determination and such as, do you know the word steeliness? There's a steeliness about you that I, You can tell me whether I've got this right or not, but I feel like you are extremely tough.
I wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of you. I feel like you are beautiful and soft and loving and all of those things, of course. But then there is a part of you that I think has probably had to deal with some really bad stuff. And you have come out of that and you've learned from that. you have a determination about you that is, I just think that is unwavering.
You are so still. As I look at you, you're so still and you have such amazing presence about you. I think there's the international community that will be seeing you now, of course, but I think there's a whole community around you, alive, spiritual that are

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protecting you and guiding you to what you're doing. Do you feel that? Yes, of course. There are so many people. I could not do it alone. In the beginning, it was very difficult because when I was 15, I started doing my first job and I would earn equal to $15 a month. And I would use that money for my school because at that time there was no internet. I couldn't speak English or anything like that.
But in 2011, when I joined internet and so many people, they became my friends and they started supporting me. Like they started sending me financial support and moral support. And there are many friends who sit in front of me like you are sitting right now from America and they give me this opportunity to open my heart in front of them and cry and tell them the stories of our success, of our failure and they lift me up, they give me more courage, they encourage me and they make me feel that I'm not alone in what I'm doing.
Alone, I cannot do these things. I mean, I can dream. Yes, I think that I am an unbreakable person psychologically and emotionally because when I decide I have to do something, I know I have to find a way to do something. When Meera's case happened, in just one hour, I sent out emails to 35 organizations all over the world to ask for help. and only one organization got back to me. So we did it.
And I know when I have to do something, when I have to achieve a goal, when I have to transform a life, I have to knock so many doors. And ultimately, I have to keep doing it until one door opens for me to give me their support. And it happens all the time because I never stop.

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You are unbreakable and you are not afraid of asking for help either, which some people can see as a sign of weakness. And you're clearly not afraid of rejection as well that you sent out to 35 organisations and one came back. Some people would focus on the 34 that didn't come back. You focused on the one that did. What have been some of your learnings? There are many women that would be listening to you wishing to be as unbreakable as you.
What have you learned that you can share about that? First of all, as I said before, when you have a challenge, tell yourself, celebrate it. When you have a challenge, celebrate it and say yourself congratulations, because a challenge is bringing opportunities for you to learn more, to do more, to make more connections, to make more friends. And then… always keep it in your mind that in order to get success, we have to accept the failure.
And failure doesn't mean that it is a time to stop. The failure means making a try. If you are failing again, make another try until you reach to that goal where you are supposed to be. This is how I do things. I started working as a child labor. And I decided that I'm never going to a school in Pakistan because they will discriminate me, which is not true because there are many good schools.
But this is what I learned from one experience. And then I never went back to school. Instead, I made a school where we are treating all the children equally. And you self-taught. You were saying earlier that you taught yourself as a child. Wow, that's amazing. Because I didn't want to be discriminated again. I didn't want the society, this opportunity to discriminate me again for my belief or for anything, even as a girl, because I'm not less than anybody as a girl or even if I was a boy or a transgender.
You know, all of us are equal and everybody should be treated equally. If you had such a platform,

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to communicate to the world, but maybe that's to say particularly women and men or genders in Pakistan. And you could say whatever you wanted. What would you say? Love each other because with love, when somebody hates me, if I love them back, I will multiply the love. But if I will hate them, I will break the chain of love. love should not be stopped. Love to your work, love to yourself, love to every living being around you.
And how do we break the cycle of something like child marriage and honor killings and these terrible things that keep happening? We have to keep working on many things, but in the countries like Pakistan, I think we have to focus more on first of all, in the religious leaders. And because in our culture, people listen to the religious leader so much and they obey what they say. And second, we have to empower more women and girls so the society can understand that women do not have only one job, which is to get married or to raise the children.
That is not a bad thing women should do who want to do this, but it doesn't mean that this is the only thing they can do. They can be business women, they can be doctors, they can be scientists, they can be singers, they can be writers, they can be teachers, they can be nurses. What we have to do, we have to create opportunities for them.

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And what's your message for women in the US or in the UK or in Europe who perhaps are aware that these things happen but wouldn't necessarily know how to impact or to help what you're doing? What is your message for us? I have a message for them that there are many grassroots leaders who sometimes leave hope or they just get tired because they are the frontline leaders and they are having battles every day with the cultural norms and what is that, many things.
The women from America and other developed countries, they should find out the women like us, like me. because we need their help. We need their financial support. We need their moral support. We need them to spread the word about our work because sometimes I feel alone. Sometimes I need that. I feel like I need more support. Like now I need to have my own school building because my school building is rented.
And I was telling you before that I have stomach pain because I'm thinking all the time if I will not have our own building, what will happen? Although I know that our school will keep running in any way, because I will never get it stopped, but I terribly need a school building for our school. And if, what is that, 100 women start sending us to our website, $10 or $20 a month, it will make a huge difference.
In just $10, they can, send one child in school for one month, they can, because we are giving here, what is that, midday meal also, they can, what is that, feed one child with those $10. So it is very easy to help us make a difference with a very small amount of money or just by sharing our story on the social media with their friends or with their family. So very easy, tangible things to do.
If you have the money, if you don't have the money, there's still ways to support you. I'll put it onto the podcast as well. But Sister Zeph, what is the website? I will send you its link also. That is zephaniaheducation.org. Zefniaeducation.org. And Zephaniah is Z-E-P-H-A-N-I. Also, it is very easy to find out everything about our organization by just putting Sister Zeph on Google. You're famous and then lots of things will come up about you.
I can't say that I'm famous, but I have my Wikipedia on Google and all the information is available there. All the links are available there because we have existence on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram.

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We have our website. So basically we are everywhere on the social media. Are you ever in fear of your own safety, your own life? In 2006, it was Christmas Eve when some gunmen came and they started shooting. And we just hide ourselves, my family, because we are all at one place and we hid ourselves inside the house and we called the police and police came and they rescued us. In 2013… Hold on, hold on.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This very big habit of the women that I interview is to skip over these things very quickly because it's very like, well, this has happened and then it happened again. So gunmen burst into your house. For what reason? Did you find out? Because I'm empowering the girls. That was the reason? Yeah, the thing that if the girls will be educated and empowered, men will not have control over them.
That must have been terrifying. Yes, I have been crying over this incident for many years, not for my own safety, but because this was my niece, she was two years old at that time. Then I saw that her mother, she was so scared and I was also scared for her. I thought that their training is not good. If they wanted to kill me, they were supposed to find me on the road because they could find me anywhere.
They were not supposed to attack my home. That was a difficult thing, but it gave me more power because I realized that they take me, they think that I am more powerful than them. That's why they want to kill me. So after a few years, I started celebrating it inside of me because we only try to eliminate that thing, which we think that that is a challenge for us. And it happened again?
That wasn't the first time? Yeah, that was first time. And then in 2013, it happened again. That was a very huge incident because first they attacked my mother and my sister and they beat them so bad. Because to support my programs, I have been doing a job for 17 years. And when I came back from my office, they attacked me as well. And they beat me so bad. And it keeps happening.
Sometimes they throw, what is that, pebbles on me. Sometimes we have some celebration like Women's Day and they attack us. Two years before, I went to a high school in the main village and even the teachers and the children, they attacked me and my team. But that was not for, because I teach girls, that was because they were claiming that I'm a Christian. That's why I have, I'm trying to spread my religion, which is not true because I'm not a pastor.
My job is not to preach the Bible. My job is to preach the humanity. And when it comes to humanity, we have to treat everybody equal. And I treat everybody equally because my job is just

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and I do not want people to be divided. Sister Zeph, thank you so much for speaking with me today. I'm stunned and I am moved and I am depressed and I am happy. I'm in awe of what you do on a daily basis. Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity. I'm feeling so honored to be able to talk to you and to share my story. And one last thing I want to say that please don't feel sad because here is a hope and we are giving a hope to these girls and these women.
And before I die… I will find out more leaders in the community and I will help them to grow. It's phenomenal. Thank you. I'm your fan forever. We'll make sure that as many people as we can know about the work that you're doing. And I'm so happy to know you. I'm so happy that you're part of our events and conferences now and you're coming back and you do my podcast and we're just forever friends.
Thank you. Thank you. Have a very good day.

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Thank you so much. Bye. Well, I kept saying, wow, didn't I, throughout that. I don't really know what to say. I feel, of course, we know these things. I know these things happen. Honor killings, burnings, these medieval, beyond medieval attitudes towards women and girls. The story of this young baby that was married off at six months old, and then reserved for her husband. is stunning, and I think when these stories are right in our faces like this, it makes me so determined to want to try and help in some way, to want to do something to get her story out there.
She's just fucking superb. I wouldn't swear in front of her. She has this aura of magnificence about her. She is phenomenal. She is… rebellious in the most loving way I have ever had the honor to witness, quite frankly. The girls are so privileged to have her and that she continues in the face of such adversity. Sister Zeph, you are an angel and thank you for doing this podcast today and I'm so stunned.
I didn't ask her about COVID, but I had this feeling though that whatever would stand in this woman's way, Nothing was insurmountable. And so it didn't somehow seem like the question to ask. I hope that you're not too sad about what you're listening to, because it's important that we hear these stories. It's important that we know. It's important that we have a global view. It's critical that we provide her with the moral support, as she has to me, although she probably wouldn't realize that today.
She has provided such camaraderie. I'm delighted, absolutely delighted to have this new friend.

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