NEW DELHI: Bollywood actor Kareena Kapoor Khan believes that educating girls should be the first step towards empowering women.
“There is a direct link between a girl being educated and empowered,” stated the 37-year-old actor, adding that education would enable a woman to shoulder the responsibilities of motherhood.
Kareena was speaking at an event in New Delhi organised by Unicef India to discuss the importance of celebrating mothers and their newborns.
“There is a very important need to stress on the education of a female child. Pregnancy during adolescence puts both the mother and child in danger and proper education will help put a check on it,” she said.
The event was organised to mark Mother’s Day against the backdrop of Unicef’s Every Child Alive initiative, a signature neonatal campaign that supports and accelerates Unicef’s efforts to eliminate preventable neonatal deaths by 2030, with a focus on the female children.
“We need to give more emphasis to a girl’s education. They are the ones who become mothers. They need to be given the right guidance and right education – this is something we all need to look for,” explained the Udta Punjab actor.
The actor who will soon be seen in Veere Di Wedding also emphasised on the role of fathers in parenting and talked about her husband Saif Ali Khan’s contribution in bringing up their first child.
“It is said ‘what a mother can do, the father can’t,’ but there are a lot of things that a father can do. And I am lucky to get the support from Saif. Even when I was exhausted after giving birth, I still insisted Saif to keep Taimur attached to his chest, give him the kangaroo love,” shared the actor.
She also mentioned that a father should step in when a mother undergoes changes, post delivery. “We must champion those fathers and give a shout out to them for their support,” explained Kareena.
