Picture Dictionary & Books : Free for English Learner!

That's twelve and thirteen.

While boys still enjoyed their childhood.

Or basic human rights such as healthcare were denied just beause they were women.

Let's call this whole experience trigger number 1 for me.

Fast forward a few years and many many triggers in between.

Like a produver director, for example, early on in my career, I must have been about eighteen or nineteen, that if I didn't agree to the ridiculous terms or painfully low salary in his movie that he would just replace me because girls are replaceable in the entertainment business.

Made me decide to make myself irreplacable.

But I think what really moved the needle for me and ultimately led me to create the Priyanka Chopra foundation for health and education and around the same time partner with UNICEF was encounter with my housekeeper's daughter.

About 12 years ago, I came home from set early one day and she was sitting in my library reading a book.

And she must have been eight or nine years old and I knew she loved reading.

So I asked her, I was like "this i s- I mean it's a weekday, why aren't you in school?"

And she says, "Oh, I don't go to school anymore."

So I went and asked her mother and I said, "Why isn't she in school?"

And her mom said that her family couldn't afford to send her and her brothers to school so they chose the boys.

The reason: she would eventaully get married and it would be a waste of money.

I was completely blown and it shook me to my core.

Eventually, I decided to cover the cost of her education so that she could continue to learn because education is a basic human right.

And a huge necessity especially today.

From that point on I was determined to make a difference in as many children's lives as I could in whatever big or small way that I could contribute.

There's a really really beautiful quote that I read recently and I think it's absolutely appropriate to explain what I'm trying to say today.

The hand that rocks the cradle, the procreator, the mother of tomorrow, a woman shapes the destiny of civilization such is the tragic irony of fate that a beautiful creation such as a girl child is today one of the gravest concerns facing humanity.

Girls have the power to change the world, it is a fact and yet today, girls are more likely than boys never to set foot in a classroom despite of all the efforts and progress made over the last tow decades more than - I'm just going to give you a stat - more than fifteen million girls of primary school age will never learn how to read or write compared to ten million boys.

Primary school, it's the beginning of our future.

Over the last eleven years, I have witnessed first hand the incredible work that UNICEF does for children around the world especially victims and survivors of child marriage, displacement, war, secual violence but there is still so much work to do and for me, that is the fuel to my fire.

The reason I am so committed to this cause and that is where my passion stems from because I know that a girl's education not just empowers family but communities and economies.

Table of Contents