High honours: UAF student to address UN assembly

Second student from Pakistan to address the global forum

FAISALABAD: Rabia Faridi, a student of University of Agriculture Faisalabad (UAF), will receive Youth Courage Award 2014 at the upcoming session of the United Nations General Assembly on September 22.

She will also address the general assembly.

Faridi is the second Pakistani student invited to speak at the global forum. She is also a global youth ambassador on education at the UN.

Faridi comes from a village near Samundri and is the oldest of nine siblings.

Her father owns two acres land and runs a wood workshop.

Faridi, 24, says she will highlight the problems of education in Pakistan. She says she will also discuss the importance of educating women.

“I will urge developed nations to support Pakistan in its initiatives education. I will also call on them to launch education programmes in conflict zones,” she says.

She believes that militancy and intolerance can be countered through good education.

Faridi says she is the first girl in her family to go to school. She says some of the family members wanted her to quit after matriculation. She says her father has stood by her.

She says she passed her intermediate examinations in pre-medical subjects from Government College Samundri. She says she chose to study agricultural sciences and got admitted to the UAF.

She says she is plant breeding and genetics as her major.

At university, Faridi also joined the debating club.

“I learned public speaking and got confidence in myself by interacting with other debaters,” she said.

Now she is an MSc student and member of debating club and a senior tutor at the UAF.

Faridi is also a winner of Bargad Youth I-con Award 2014.

Currently, she is working on a campaign to enrol out-of-school and dropouts to schools.

Faridi had presented a speech on women’s education at the Convention Centre in Islamabad where UN Special Envoy for Global Education and former British prime minster Gordon Brown was the chief guest.

She says she wants to pursue PhD studies and hopes to study abroad.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 19^th, 2014.