EDUCATION
Rukaiyya's public speaking and time management skills have considerably improved through her education at one of the KGBVs supported by CARE India.
Rukaiyya Khatun is the only child to a single mother who also suffers from a heart-related illness. As a child, Rukaiyya did not attend school because the family lacked the funds. When her mother divorced her father, Rukaiyya and her mother moved in with her mother’s family and her uncle supported her wish to be educated.
Soon after, Rukaiyya joined class 6 at the KGBV in Gaindas Bujurg, Uttar Pradesh. She worked arduously through the bridge course which helps to bring students up to the grade level very quickly and she has now become a smart and hard-working student. Despite her lack of primary education Rukaiyya appears as smart and confident as any other student I met at the school.
Rukaiyya enjoys studying and playing with her friends. She told me that her interpersonal, public speaking and time management skills have considerably improved through her education at KGBV. Her grooming at the KGBV school has made her become more responsible. Now when she goes home during vacations, she helps her mother more and seeing such positive changes in her daughter, her mother finally values and supports her education.
I was told that the nearest higher secondary school is too far away for her to attend every day. However, Rukaiyya is certain that she will find a way to continue her education after KGBV. If her uncle cannot pay the school fees, her plan is to tutor younger students in the village in order to pay for her education. Rukaiyya’s self-confidence will be an asset as she dreams of becoming a doctor one day in order to help care for her mother and open a hospital in her village.
