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This is a part of rural Bengal, in the district of Bankura
one of the most disadvantaged areas of this portion of the country
With the substantial population living below the poverty line
Belonging to tribal and other backward classes of the country,
And it also has got a very rich culture and heritage.
We came here as part of a heritage tour and we got connected to the local people
And we started seeing a dream along some of the people of this village
to help the first generation learners, the girl students, from very poor families
to get higher education and earn a livelihood for themselves.
So we started around 2006 but it was not easy
like in any other marginal communities, those girls are rather marginalised
and their parents would not allow them to do anything else but house work.
And they discouraged us from continuing with our project, but we insisted.
And in our first generation, 2 or 3 girls got their post graduate degrees.
and when they got back to their families the value they added, the respect they got
slowly and with certainty changed the attitude of the society towards the girl child.
And now when we ask these people to join the project
there are many who come forward to us and we try to accommodate as many as possible.
Now we have more than 30 students who regularly come to our courses.
we have started a small textbook library to help them,
and around 20 girls are doing their college and university degrees in Kolkata or in Bishnupur.
Some of them have also qualified for government jobs and
is great for them, because this is a first stage of getting respect and financial independence.
We are very happy because in all this 4/5 years what we can write is our success story,
though its a small part of the district and a very miniscule part maybe
of the world, but actually in some areas the attitude and the approach towards
the education of women has changed a little bit for the better.
That is the most positive impact we have been able to achieve
from 2006 when we started working. and we hope to achieve it more,
we’ll get more associates and if we can all join hands together
then we think that we can actually change the position of mainly the tribal
and under privileged girl students of this area.
But there are certain things that we think have become necessary
like providing them certain skilled training, job based,
including computer skills, internet skills. And also training program for specialized
examination to take them to government jobs. We are mainly dealing with students who
come from the background of humanities but we’d like to involve girls
interested in science, but for it will need some infrastructural support.
So we hope that one day some of the girls will become engineer
and doctors as well and be the proud members of a very modern Indian society.