{"id":3018,"date":"2019-11-13T14:51:03","date_gmt":"2019-11-13T09:21:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.educategirls.ngo\/?p=3018"},"modified":"2023-09-05T10:32:02","modified_gmt":"2023-09-05T05:02:02","slug":"educating-the-most-marginalised-girls-in-india-it-takes-a-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.educategirls.ngo\/blog\/educating-the-most-marginalised-girls-in-india-it-takes-a-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Educating The Most Marginalised Girls In India: It Takes A Community"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This story depicts the hardships that Educate Girls\u2019 frontline workers endure to ensure that no girl in their village is left behind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Satish Yadav (23) who works with Educate Girls<\/a><\/strong> as a Field Coordinator looks after the implementation of the core programme in eight villages of Khandwa district (in Madhya Pradesh), instructing village-based volunteers there. With a Master\u2019s degree in Economics and work experience as a teacher, he is passionate about education for all and this is what led him to join Educate Girls in 2018. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One winter morning when Satish was on his way to visit one of the villages, he spotted a frail-looking girl sitting near a temple, her hands outstretched for alms. Her mother begged at another spot farther away. \u201cI was covered in three layers of clothing, but the girl sat there without any warm clothes on, not even a chappal (footwear) to cover her feet<\/em>,\u201d recalls Satish. As he entered the village and met with Manga Ram (45), the local volunteer there, he was informed that the girl\u2019s name was Mala*, that she was around 7-8 years old and had never been to school. Mala\u2019s name was already featured on the target list of out of school girls, first drawn during a door-to-door survey. Manga Ram further informed that all efforts to enrol the girl had been unsuccessful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mala\u2019s family lived below the poverty line.\nThey had neither money, nor possessions. Her father, who worked as labourer in\na nearby town, blew all his wages on night life. Her mother took to begging for\nsurvival. When she noticed that people felt more pity for a child, she got Mala\nto beg with her. Their village is so impoverished that families there could\nonly offer them a place to sleep at night. Manga Ram tried several times to\nspeak to the mother about Mala\u2019s enrolment in school, but each time she flatly\nrefused. \u201cFour begging hands give more money than two begging hands<\/em>,\u201d\nshe argued and would leave the village whenever she saw Manga Ram or any other\nEducate Girls\u2019 representative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Satish was adamant about bringing Mala to\nschool, but he also knew he would need support from the entire community. He\nguided Manga Ram in developing a two-pronged strategy, consisting of community\nmobilisation and parental counselling. This way they first approached the most\ninfluential people in the village \u2013 the Sarpanch<\/em> (head of village), the\nschool teacher and an Anganwad<\/em>i (rural child care centre) helper. They\nconducted neighbourhood meetings to talk about the benefits of educating girls\nwhere the Anganwadi <\/em>helper ensured Mala\u2019s mother was present. In effect,\nthey addressed collective mind sets and garnered support for the cause. Ultimately,\nother families got involved and cajoled the mother to sit for one-on-one\ncounselling with Satish and Manga Ram. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the meeting, Mala\u2019s mother was told of\nall the wonderful things that her daughter could achieve with education.\nExamples of female teachers, police officers, political leaders were cited. But,\nher mother wouldn\u2019t relent. \u201cWe need to beg for our next meal<\/em>. How is\nher education going to help<\/em>?\u201d she cried. \u201cSo you must send Mala to\nschool at least for the mid-day meal<\/em>,\u201d said Satish and this was a moment of\nclarity! Food was the mother\u2019s central concern. If school was a place where\nMala could get a good meal, then why not?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the process to enrol Mala was no cake walk. Mala did not have any valid, government-issued ID, which is mandatory. Satish went out of his way, spoke to the government officials and ensured that her individual identity number (Aadhaar<\/em> card) was issued in time. Mala has been enrolled in school since June 2019, at the start of the new academic year. At the moment, she is in a bridge course and taking extra classes to help her catch up to the level of her schoolmates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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(L to R) Manga Ram, Teacher, Mala and Satish
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We met Mala on the 100th<\/sup> day of her school journey and asked her how she feels. In a shy, but happy voice she said, \u201cMy school is so nice. I have good friends here and I play with them. I like my teachers and the food. When we would beg, I did not have a plate and a spoon. We used to keep the food on a big leaf. Eating with a spoon is different. My teachers also gave me new clothes (uniform) and soap to wash my body and hair. I feel clean. There is also a toilet here that I use.\u201d <\/em>When asked about what she likes the most in school, she was quick to reply \u2013 \u201cwriting on the blackboard<\/em>!\u201d Mala already dreams of becoming a teacher!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mala at school<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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Mala\u2019s mother is very proud of her decision, \u201cAgreeing to send her to school is the best thing I have done in many years. Earlier when I watched Mala plead to people for alms, I would worry about her security. We are vulnerable women after all. But her school is a safe place. I am ashamed it took me so long to enroll her. I can see the happiness in her eyes. She brings her books to me and tells me everything that was taught to her. I can see that her future is not on the streets. 2019 could be the start of a better future for my daughter and me.<\/em>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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With a large geography to manage, Satish\u2019s job is a tough one. It\u2019s tiring and can be overwhelming on some days. But according to him, his time at Educate Girls has impacted him deeply, \u201cMy elder sister was married off very young and much against her will. She wanted to study but couldn\u2019t. I couldn\u2019t do much for her then as I feared my father. Years later I can see how her inability to read and write has become such a limitation. She cannot read a simple document or sign her name or even make simple calculations. I was living with a huge guilt. So when I had the opportunity to join Educate Girls, I thought I could take a stand for other girls in my community.  My personal experience pushes me to work with utmost dedication. When I see these girls, I see my own sister and I want to be able to change the story for them. I am proud to be an active part of an important transformation in their lives. 2019 has been a satisfying year as we have managed to enroll many girls like Mala living in the most marginalised communities who were harder-to-enrol cases.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Educate A Child<\/a> (EAC), a global\nprogramme of the Education Above All (EAA) Foundation, has partnered with\nEducate Girls to identify out of school children like Mala and make sure that\nthey have access to quality primary education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the support of EAC, Educate Girls has been working in some of the most remote and marginalised communities of India, providing over 215,000 formerly out of school children (OOSC) 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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*name changed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This story depicts the hardships that Educate Girls\u2019 frontline workers endure to ensure that no girl in their village is left behind. Satish Yadav (23) who works with Educate Girls as a Field Coordinator looks after the implementation of the core programme in eight villages of Khandwa district (in Madhya Pradesh), instructing village-based volunteers there. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5735,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,52,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories-from-the-field","category-beneficiary-stories","category-voices"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.educategirls.ngo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3018","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=3018"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.educategirls.ngo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5734,"href":"https:\/\/www.educategirls.ngo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3018\/revisions\/5734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.educategirls.ngo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.educategirls.ngo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.educategirls.ngo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}