Maliha Abidi honors famous Pakistani women by painting their likenesses.
She's gathered those portraits in a book, "Pakistan for Women," hoping to inspire others to pursue their dreams. Her book features 50 influential women, including social activist Malala Yousafzai.
“There are so many stories that I could be illustrating or telling,” Abidi told InsideEdition.com. “I cannot just draw them and post them online and move on. I need to do something with that and that's where the initial idea for 'Pakistan for Women' came about.”
Reaction to the book has been overwhelmingly positive.
“I think it's more amazing to me that it's not just people of Pakistan,” said Abidi. “There's people from all around the world and they don't care where these stories are coming from, they only care about learning.”
Abidi has launched her second Kickstarter to print more copies of her book.
“I wanted to give away at least 600 to 1,000 books to underprivileged schools so that kids can learn about these stories. ... Representation matters a lot."
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