Zaina is like any other five-year-old girl.

She loves to play. She meets up with her sweet little friends in her village’s dusty, uneven streets, and the make-believe adventures begin. When the sun goes down, she watches her mother wield kitchen tools with finesse. The shiny pots, the wooden spoons, the boxes of aromatic spices. Her mother is her hero. She longs to be like her.  

Occasionally, she quietly and carefully looks through her mother’s collection of sari dresses, chooses one with the brightest colors, and wraps the nine feet of silky fabric around herself, eager for the day when she will wear one of her own. Her life as a five-year-old is simple yet idyllic. She smiles more than she frowns and laughs more than she cries.

Sometimes, though, Zaina is sent away to play with friends, even at night. Her mom always looks exhausted, sometimes has cuts and bruises, and constantly goes to the clinic for treatment. 

What could be happening? Her innocent five-year-old mind could not put the pieces together. She just couldn’t understand. She occupied her days with play and admired her mom’s tenderness towards her. Her dreams of owning her own sari didn’t end.

And then Zaina started school.

Just shy of her 6th birthday, Zaina’s mother took her to a nearby DFN school.  Zaina was delighted to receive a neatly pressed school uniform and a brand-new slate with fresh sticks of pure white chalk. She joined hundreds of other children who sang songs, recited poems, and neatly wrote the letters called A, B, and C. It became the happiest time of Zaina’s life!  

She stayed at that DFN school for 12 years. She graduated. She went on to university and got a teaching degree. Today, she teaches other young children the same songs and poems and the same letters A, B, and C. She cooks her own meals, wears her own saris, and has a daughter of her own, to whom she became the hero. 

Why did Zaina’s life, which was at risk of disaster, turn out so well? Why didn’t the same traffickers who stole her mother’s joy night after night leave her alone? 

Because Zaina went to school!

  • Education protected Zaina from the horrific sentence that claimed her mother’s life. 
  • Education gave her a place to break the trappings of poverty.
  • Education allowed her to claim a life that matched her five-year-old hopes and dreams.

This is our mission at Dignity Freedom Network. We want to get there first. We want to get there before young girls like Zaina are forced into a system of trafficking that will steal their innocence and their futures. You can do that!

This year, we expect 6000 new students to enroll at DFN schools across India. They need you to STAND IN THE GAP so that nothing interrupts their education. 

You’ll protect children like Zaina from trafficking and child labor. 

You’ll give them the life they were created to live. 

Because every life is worth fighting for.