“When anyone has to live their life in fear, whether a girl or guy, it’s an impediment to education and empowerment.” – Pooja Nagpal
19-year-old Pooja Nagpal was awarded the 2016 Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes. I will tell you why and the reason is beyond impressive. When she was 15 years old, she received a second degree black belt in Taekwondo. And she decided to teach young girls in a remote mountain village in India, how to defend themselves. Isn’t it amazing!
Pooja had been a trainee of Taekwondo for 7 years and she always dreamt of making good use of her martial arts skills. Nowadays, we hear women being assaulted and stories of domestic abuse abound all over the media; so, it has become extremely important for women to learn self defense. After reading and hearing all the news of women being abused, Pooja knew she had to help those young girls protect and defend themselves in time of need. So one fine day, this young lady decided to travel to the mountain village of Subathu in India with her sister Meera and execute her girl scout gold project.
“I am a very strong supporter of activism rather than advocacy: actually doing something about a cause rather than campaigning for it or talking about it. This seemed like a perfect opportunity to contribute my skills and passion for a great cause. I also figured if these girls learned self-defense, they might be able to protect themselves in situations of danger or violence,” Nagpal explained in her 2015 TED talk!
The chronicles of the village girls on their experiences of stalking and menace on their way to school, that Pooja heard from them kept haunting her even after coming home. She also became aware of the fact that these kinds of thing getting in the way of education was an problematic issue not only in India, but also other parts of the world.
After she was done with her Gold Award Winning Project, Pooja went ahead to launch ‘For a Change, Defend,’ an NGO and a non-profit organization that teaches martial arts based self defense in educational institutions. She also started a two part curriculum that helps to empower young girls and women, both emotionally and physically, through discussions and activities to improve leadership, community service, confidence and education.
She also worked with the Los Angeles Police Department and also planned on creating a women safety app. Pooja made sure to visit the rural area of India and conduct classes and self defense workshops for them. The interesting part is she does this noble cause online as well. Students can learn the defense techniques through her online videos.
She has a popular Facebook page, “ For a change, defend” and through which she got the opportunity of working with a Darfur refugee agency.
Pooja’s proud father, Pavan Nagpal, says
“It is wonderful to see my daughter’s compassion making a difference in others’ lives. She has had this compassion and commitment from a very young age, a fact that makes me so happy.”
More than 600 women have learnt self defense from Pooja from victims of trafficking to the women who are most vulnerable. Pooja was teaching at a school for the visually impaired in Chandigarh when she read about the 50 girls of the Dhaneli village in the Bareilly district who were briefly forced to discontinue studies due to continuous harassment by a group of youths on the way to school.
The girls were able to resume their studies only after the police increased security deployment in the area. Earlier, Pooja was a teacher at a school for the disabled in Chandigarh. That’s when she came across this widespread news of 50 girls being harrassed by a group of youths on the way to school. She instantly decided to take a quick trip to the Dhaneli village in the Bareilly district to teach the girls some self defense techniques and give them proper training to defend themselves.
Initally, the girls were not so keen to learn but eventually, they gave in and learned a few techniques and made a promise to teach other girls in their area.
While we are mentioning about Poojas willingness to help girls, let’s not forget she was a student herself. She had to go back to U.S.A., to continue her studies. She hopes to come back every summer to make sure that the funds are utilized in her NGO in a proper way.
Pooja is majoring in electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. Although she does not have enough time for Taekwondo lessons now than what she did earlier at Mira Costa High School in Manhattan Beach, Pooja is still working toward a third degree black belt.
In between managing her NGO and juggling her various college courses, Pooja likes to play the piano and listen to Taylor Swift. She manages to take out time for her other hobbies as well. She loves to play the piano and also listen to her favourite artist, Taylor swift.
In the past three years, this young lady has taught and trained self defense to more than 1000 women in India and LA.
Recently, she was named a 2016 winner of the Gloria Barron Prize for Young heroes and also was one among 10 National Young Women of Distinction, recognized by the Girl Scouts last year.
