Sadia Khatri is determined to change the lives of women and girls in Pakistan\u2014one tea-sipping, snacking, strolling, bicycle-riding excursion at a time. \u00a0The story of Sadia, a native of Karachi, Pakistan\u2019s most populous city, and her activism began with her decision to go to college in America. Sadia landed at Mount Holyoke, a prestigious, all-women\u2019s college in South Hadley, Massachusetts. Sadia\u2019s American experience changed her life. It seems possible that the sense of empowerment brought back to Pakistan by this one young woman might end up changing the lives of thousands of women and girls in cities across Pakistan.<\/p>\n
Sadia\u2019s epiphany came to her after she returned to Karachi and realized that the lifestyle she\u2019d enjoyed as a woman in America, particularly the freedom to go out alone with no purpose other than to enjoy being out in a public space, shed a harsh light on the constrained lives of women and girls in her hometown. As Sadia explains, male-dominated traditions, misperceptions about safety for women, and both subtle and overt social mores dictated that females have a male companion or chaperone accompany them in public spaces\u2014whether that be a male friend, a father, or a brother. As a budding feminist and a young woman who had experienced the unfettered freedom of women in America, Sadia was seized with a passion for change.<\/p>\n