Ayla Adnan

Early life and background

Adnan was born in Karachi. She lived in Dubai for a couple of years as a child. Her parents divorced when she was in second grade. After the divorce, she lived with her mother and grandmother. [1]

Adnan describes herself as the only child in her family. She says she sees her father every weekend, and that he is friendly with her mother and visits the family home. She says her parents have always spoken well of each other. She says she and her father are close, and that she and her mother were close too. She says she respects that she is no longer treated like a child. [1]

Adnan's Nana died when her mother was 19, and her Nani raised four children and ran the household. She says she grew up seeing her mother and grandmother be financially independent. She says she learned volunteer work and respect from her mother and grandmother. [1]

Education

Adnan did her pre-school education before moving on to later schooling. She attended an O-level school from third grade to 11th grade. She says her school's graduating class of 2019 had 23 students, and that she is part of the 1% of Pakistan able to attend an O-level school. She says she got into the UK on her own grades. [1]

Debating and Model United Nations

Adnan has done international Model UN debating since fifth grade. She represented Pakistan at a Montessori Model United Nations conference in Switzerland. She says she won a Model United Nations competition while representing her school. She says her grandfather was a debater in Sindh and top of his class. [1]

She says her love for debate declined during her A-level years. She says Pakistani debate was very toxic, especially for women. She says she felt uncomfortable several times at one conference because of physical closeness from a student of another school, and that action was taken when she raised the issue. [1]

Content creation

Adnan says some of her first videos to go viral featured her and a friend doing a dance step. She says her early videos were candid and unplanned, and that some began to do well without a planned reason. She says the success of those videos led her to start a YouTube channel. [1]

She estimates that 60 percent of her viral reach came from the masses and 40 percent from people who already knew her. She says comments on her videos became negative, but she did not let them affect her. She says her Instagram followers came mainly from her YouTube audience. [1]

She says that when her A-levels resumed in her final year, she had to decide whether to be regular on YouTube or on Instagram. She says Instagram was more accessible to her than YouTube. She also says her laptop crashed and ran out of space, and that she considered outsourcing her video editing but did not trust anyone with her raw content. [1]

She says the content in her feed is now mostly Gen Z Pakistani creators on TikTok. She says she is earning from a niche she loves. [1]

Menstrual hygiene awareness

A visiting speaker came to Adnan's school during a career week in May 2018, when she was in ninth grade. She says a talk by a visiting speaker about a bomb blast, and how he and his team went and helped, got her thinking about change. She says she asked what she could do as one individual to bring change. She says one person can bring change by helping even one other person. [1]

Adnan chose menstrual hygiene awareness as her cause because it is a taboo topic. She says she started her work by collecting donations and distributing sanitary napkins. She says her first plan to educate women directly was not logistically possible, and that her work grew from small ration drives into bigger drives that helped women. She says she knew of no large NGO in Karachi talking about menstrual hygiene at the time, and that most people did not understand the purpose of the work when she started. [1]

Adnan says her research found that sanitary napkins cost about as much as a meal. She says that when the choice was between buying lentils or a pack of sanitary napkins, the choice would always be family first. She says women who put themselves first are often labelled selfish. She says monthly free packs helped women avoid spending their own money on sanitary napkins. [1]

She says cloth pads are not very effective, based on her research. She says menstrual cups would save money, but society is not ready for them. She says many women get infections that start with poor hygiene, and that she has not found an alternative that is effective and cuts costs at scale. [1]

Adnan says government initiatives are needed on a larger scale for this issue. She says governments probably cannot provide the products but can run awareness campaigns, and she suggests getting UN Women to help organise the drive. She says people first need to understand how important this issue is, and that a conversation at home can start a domino effect. She says education should include learning about one's own body and health. [1]

Views

Adnan says financial independence has been a freeing feeling since she started working. She says she pays her own bills and buys her own groceries. She says every parent should talk with their children about financial independence, and that it can come from skills such as tutoring, not only a nine-to-five job. [1]

She says she and her friends talked about incidents they had experienced before #MeToo. She says the public debate on #MeToo has started conversations that did not happen ten years ago. She says she rarely sees teenage boys have serious conversations, and that maturity does not come only with age, but with experience. [1]

Adnan describes a lack of self-awareness of one's own privilege as also part of the issue. She says she used to see things as only right or wrong, with no grey area, and that she used to voice every opinion, even when it could hurt someone. She says she now thinks twice before voicing an opinion, and that people should learn to agree to disagree. She says mental health is the first priority for men and women, and that being an honest person matters more than earning. [1]

Timeline

2018

A visiting speaker came to her school during a career week in May, when she was in ninth grade.[1]

2019

Her school's graduating class of 2019 had 23 students.[1]

Appearances

Frequently asked questions

References

1. Boys can be men. Men are respectful. Boys at times are not. . Thought Behind Things , 2021-11-25.