Name: Marlee Erdreich
Social Justice Group: 2022-2023, Girls Access to Education Globally
Date of Fieldwork: February 15, 2023
Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):Zoe Timms, The founder of The Womens Education Project
Type of Fieldwork: Interview
What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork?:
February 15th, 2023, my social justice group met with the founder of The Women’s Education Project, Zoe Timms. We invited her to talk about her work with girls education in India and how she found courage in herself throughout the process. We first discussed things like where she went to college and how she got the opportunity to go abroad to India for a year. When her professor presented the idea to the class, she was immediately all in.
While in India, Zoe noticed that the area she was in was very polluted and many families were in poverty. This made her feel compelled to help out more and go beyond just college. Many girls were not in school which was a main problem Zoe was passionate about. To get more personal, my social justice group asked for a specific story about a girl who went through the education program. She told us a touching story about a time where karate class was taking place and one 12 year old girl had polio so she couldn’t really participate. A couple days later, Zoe saw the girl saying that she actually joined in on the class with everyone else. This showed commitment and how the young girl really tried something new, even when she was discouraged. Another question my group asked was what are some barriers you come across when trying to help girls out. She answered that many men in a young woman’s family are usually defensive about their daughter getting a better education than themselves. This was one of the main restrictions that could occur when choosing to take action. To end off the interview, Zoe told us that she got to know herself even more when starting the Women’s Education Project. She couldn’t really believe that she made all this progress and devoted so much time to this topic.
Before the interview got set up, we were emailing Zoe and she told us that we could possibly do another fieldwork where we would talk to girls our age in India through a virtual meeting. We could share cooking recipes or maybe do an arts and crafts project. In about a week, our social justice group will now do an additional interview with Zoe Timms, but this time with girls ages 13 or 14 to find out more about their culture and possibly do cool arts and crafts projects they would want to share.
