{"id":2960,"date":"2019-10-03T14:21:22","date_gmt":"2019-10-03T08:51:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.educategirls.ngo\/?p=2960"},"modified":"2023-09-05T10:32:10","modified_gmt":"2023-09-05T05:02:10","slug":"surbhi-pursues-the-dream-of-her-grandfather","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.educategirls.ngo\/blog\/surbhi-pursues-the-dream-of-her-grandfather\/","title":{"rendered":"Surbhi Pursues The Dream Of Her Grandfather"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Surbhi*, a 13-year old from a village in\nKhandwa district of Madhya Pradesh is the apple of her grandfather\u2019s eye.\nEveryone calls her grandpa\u2019s \u2018Pampered Princess\u2019. Every evening she sits with\nher grandfather and her siblings and can be seen reciting poems, narrating\nstories or just sharing her experiences at school from earlier in the day. However,\nthis wasn\u2019t the case a few months ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surbhi\u2019s village is situated far away from\nthe town. Acute shortages of water make subsistence agriculture difficult, forcing\nfamilies to migrate to bigger towns, cities and sometimes different states altogether.\nHer parents moved to a city in the adjoining state of Maharashtra, leaving Surbhi\u2019s\nyounger siblings behind with their grandparents. In 2017, Surbhi was studying\nin class 5 when she dropped out and migrated with her parents. She would be\nneeded for cooking and cleaning while her parents laboured for long hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several months passed. Back in the village, Surbhi\u2019s ailing grandmother was finding it increasingly difficult to look after the home and the grandchildren. So Surbhi, being the eldest of all siblings, was summoned so she could now take over the responsibility of looking after her siblings and other domestic work. Her life had gotten busier and it would soon be two years since she first dropped out of school. In 2019, Surbhi was identified as an out of school girl during a door-to-door survey. Dinesh, an Educate Girls\u2019 Field Co-ordinator visited Surbhi\u2019s home in an effort to re-enrol her in school. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cWhy is Surbhi at home when her siblings go to school? How can you be so unfair to her?<\/em>\u201d he questioned the grandparents. \u201cI have always been in favour of sending all my grandchildren to school. I myself have been to school for a few years, so I understand how beneficial education can be, if pursued. But hungry stomachs need food, not education. Surbhi was needed so her parents could earn money for the house. She was asked to sacrifice her dreams so her siblings could have food and could go to school<\/em>,\u201d said a remorseful grandfather, adding \u201cand after she came back, I thought she couldn\u2019t go back to school since she had missed almost 2 years.\u201d<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n

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Surbhi with her friends<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Surbhi\u2019s\ngrandfather wanted her to study, but was unaware about the process of enrolment\nfor drop outs. She had missed out on two years of schooling which, according to\nher grandfather, would make it difficult for her to cope up with peers. \u201cFor\nchildren like Surbhi, the government has made provisions for bridge courses.\nIt\u2019s a 3-month catch-up course for children by class and age<\/em>,\u201d suggested\nDinesh. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surbhi\u2019s\ngrandfather was ready to send her back to school, but her parents were agitated\nat this decision. Her grandfather stood by her and warned her parents, \u201cRight\nnow she is my responsibility and I dare you come in the way of Surbhi\u2019s\neducation.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surbhi was enrolled in the bridge course and within a few months, she was confident to join school again. In the academic year of 2019-20, she was enrolled in class 6. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Surbhi with her grandfather<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
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\u201cI could not be prouder of her. When I see my grandchildren walk to school, I feel like I\u2019ve gone back to school myself. They tell me new stories every day and make me help them work with their homework too, even though I have forgotten everything that I learnt in my childhood! They truly bring out the child in me. I couldn\u2019t complete my education but I want all my grandchildren to fulfil their dreams,\u201d <\/em>shares a happy grandfather.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Educate A Child<\/a> (EAC), a global programme of the Education Above All (EAA) Foundation, has partnered with Educate Girls in identifying out of school children like Surbhi and making sure that they have access to quality primary education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the support of EAC, Educate Girls<\/a><\/strong> has been working in some of the most remote and marginalised communities of India, providing over 215,000 formerly out of school children (OOSC)<\/a>an opportunity to learn, thereby contributing directly to the UN\u2019s SDG 4 and indirectly impacting a number of other SDGs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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*changed name<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Surbhi*, a 13-year old from a village in Khandwa district of Madhya Pradesh is the apple of her grandfather\u2019s eye. Everyone calls her grandpa\u2019s \u2018Pampered Princess\u2019. Every evening she sits with her grandfather and her siblings and can be seen reciting poems, narrating stories or just sharing her experiences at school from earlier in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-voices"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.educategirls.ngo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.educategirls.ngo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.educategirls.ngo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.educategirls.ngo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.educategirls.ngo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2960"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.educategirls.ngo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5752,"href":"https:\/\/www.educategirls.ngo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2960\/revisions\/5752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.educategirls.ngo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.educategirls.ngo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.educategirls.ngo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}