Radna Dandsena and Mamita Dandsena both 16-year-old, are the first two girls from Odisha’s Sargiguda village in Kalahandi district to attend college. Setting a brilliant example for other aspirational girls from their village, both girls are now happily pursuing their higher education in college. While Radna has got enrolled at Bhawanipatna’s Women&rs... Read More
“No issue can stand in front of collective effort. Together we can bring change. That’s what we have learned from our association through Reflect Circle,” says Kasturi Majhi, Reflect Circle facilitator for Majhipada in Dedara Gram Panchayat in Read More
An Adivasi woman and a resident of Kharapara a small hamlet of Jamjunwani village of Pathalgaon block in Jashpur district of Chhattisgarh, Kalpana lives with her husband and three children. She has never attended school and couldn’t even remember when she got married. She along with her husband owns three acres of land and they cultivate paddy to feed... Read More
Javeriya Khatoon is one among the many smart students from a KGBV in the Bahraich district of Uttar Pradesh. After dropping out of school for a few years – Javeriya’s parents divorced and she moved with her mother – KGBV is a second chance for an education. Read More
Ms. Lakshmi standing in front of their partially damaged house Vallipuram a village Panchayat in Kanchipuram district of Tamil Nadu, consists of more than 10 small village hamlets. One of the habitations is ‘Vallipuram Yeri Karai’, which means Vallipuram’s river bed. This habitation consists of a... Read More
36 year old Kabita Mahato is the Cluster representative under HEVS initiative at Barogram Gram Panchayat of Purulia district, West Bengal. She is also a renowned Village Organization leader, but Kabita’s life was not always as inspiring as it appears today. Kabita’s journey to this day has been full of struggles. She was born into a fa... Read More
It’s a warm sunny day in Mewat, Haryana when I spot 13-year-old Udaan graduate Najma fidgeting around in a corner of the courtyard of the Udaan school. She’s biting her nails so I ask what’s making her so anxious. She nearly bursts out with frustration and tells me she can wait no longer to receive her eighth grade results! She tells me how she ... Read More
Rubina is the first in her village to send her daughter to school. “I was always interested in studying and definitely wanted to give my daughter an opportunity to study. People were against my decision, saying she will get spoilt and that nobody will guide her, but I took the plunge and later found that they do more than just guide!” she says with a ... Read More
Murshida is the first girl from the village Mahaun in Mewat district of Haryana, to study beyond primary school. A 2013 Udaan graduate, she studied until third grade in the village school and then dropped out. It was only when Join My Village field staff went to her village, met her hesitant parents and eventually convinced them to enrol her at Udaan, that Murshi... Read More
It was in the KGBV Gilaula of Shrawasti district in Uttar Pradesh that I met Seema Srivastav – a young, smart, friendly and much loved former warden of the school. Seema passionately described her experience as a KGBV warden for the past 5 years. She has been so close with the students that she is often visited by even the parents of the alumnae. Having bee... Read More
The KGBV school in the Bahraich district of Uttar Pradesh is a warm and welcoming building whose classroom and library walls are covered with many beautifully handmade posters. The students, wearing neat uniforms, stood in front of a school reciting poetry and performing a short theatre p... Read More
Daraksha Noori has many skills and interests: she loves to study and she also enjoys crafts and sewing. Daraksha, who is 16 and a 10th grader in the Bahraich district of Uttar Pradesh, is also a big sports enthusiast, which is somewhat unusual for girls in rural India, as sports are often presumed to be a boys’ pastime. However Daraksha&rsqu... Read More
