International Women’s Day | Meet 19-year old undergraduate student furthering women empowerment

The fight for gender equality and women empowerment is not just the domain of women in the workforce. It's a movement that begins in schools and colleges. 19-year-old Zoha Chaudhary is one such warrior.

Chaudhary is an under-graduate student at Mumbai's reputed St. Xavier's College and studies microbiology, zoology and chemistry — and the heavy curriculum keeps her busy. But her love affair with science began years ago.

Chaudhary says, “In class 10th I decided to pursue science. I got good marks in class 12 and got admission in Xavier's. Here I got exposed to various fields of science.”

When she's not studying or attending classes, Zoha is busy focusing on her other passion project — women empowerment. She volunteers with NGOs that work with senior citizens, women and children. Calling herself a proud feminist, Zoha dreams of building on her knowledge to expand on work centered around women welfare and hopefully, inspire other young girls just like her role models inspired her.

Chaudhary says, “Malala, J K Rowling and Mother Teresa are my role models. I aspire to be like them and want to contribute to society.”

Zoha is also inspired to study further... and that, she says, is a challenge — because she had to work to convince her conservative family to support her undergraduate journey. She is now the first girl in her family to attend college  and is proud of it.

Chaudhary says, “I want to complete undergraduate course with good marks and then apply to get into Harvard or other Ivy league schools.”

She also dreams of a world where girl children get the same educational opportunities as boys.

Apart from studying microbiology and aspiring to make a name for herself in the field of science, Zoha wants to travel the world, solo. She wants to experience bungee jumping, sky diving, paragliding and deep sea diving. But to have these experiences, Zoha believes education is key — and that's her primary focus right now.