EDUCATION
More than 70 percent of the Bahraich district in Uttar Pradesh, India lives below the poverty line – including KGBV student Ektarjahan and her family. On my visit to her school, which is supported by Join My Village, I met her mother Jahirul Nisa.
Sadly, two of Jahirul’s sons died as teenagers and she carries this sadness with her to this day. Despite this loss, she has found the courage to carry on – and one way she does that is by ensuring her daughter Ektarjahan receives an education. This opportunity was not available to her older daughters, Rabia, 20 and Salia, 15. Both daughters were married as teenagers and Jahirul hopes for a different life for her youngest daughter.
Join My Village has been supporting Ektarjahan’s teachers with a leadership curriculum that helps her and the other students at the school to reflect on self, family and society. Her teachers are also helping her sort through the emotional hardship of having an absent father, as well as a physical disability in which her hands are quite weak.
Despite these challenges, Ektarjahan, is a very hardworking student. Ektarjahan says “I think education is best here at KGBV.” Jahirul wants Ektarjahan to study and stand on her own two feet in order to have a fate different from herself and her siblings. Ektarjahan is ambitious; she plans to receive a Bachelor of Education degree and become a teacher.
Join My Village has directly supported 3,840 girls like Ektarjahan in 24 KGBVs across the state of Uttar Pradesh by engaging with school organizations, aiding teachers’ development, strengthening classroom processes, implementing leadership curriculum, and developing monitoring and mechanism systems.
About Join My Village:
Join My Village supports and features CARE’s work in highly impoverished communities which aims to expand access to education to include both girls and boys, and to provide training programs that improve livelihoods and enrich the broader community.
