Wisdom of Life

Testimonial

A ‘Musahar’ girl from Bihar broke the age-old barriers of education deprivation. Literacy rate among musahar’s is only 3 percent and falls below 1 percent for the women who are subjected to exploitation, violence, and sexual harassment since ages.

Reena, a shy and simple musahar girl from Bedwaliya village was no different when aspired to get educated to lead a better future.

Even after all the hardships she managed to get promoted to class 6 but her joy ended when due to sudden sickness and lack of public health services had to dropout from the school.

The next entire year was even more difficult for Reena and her family as she neither could attend the school nor able to assist the family in earning their livelihood. Once a little better, her family did not send her to school in order to make up for the income lost during her illness.

Reena is now coming to an age where most of the girls of her age get married but due to lack of finances she had to continue working to bear the expenses of her marriage. By the time Hamari Pathshala reached her tola, almost three years had passed since she had been to school and she had forgotten what she had learnt.

Today, Reena is married and taking bridge course to cover the gap in her studies for appearing in Bihar Board Open Schooling and Examination. The counselling and educational support provided by Caritas India Hamari Pathshala project made this possible for Reena and many other musahar girls. The project gives special focus on the development of teaching modules and training of facilitators to improve the system of education in the targeted community.

Reena and many others are receiving educational benefits and able to teach other children of her community. She wishes to continue her studies even after her marriage till her “Gauna” (a practice when the bride is finally taken to the in-laws’).

Supported by Millennium Alliance, the project with 18 months of its intervention has infused positive communication and reinforcement to build self-confidence and independence in musahar community towards education.

The project has reached out to 392 musahar girls from which 129 girls were mainstreamed into local schools. The intervention has helped 165 girls to avail RTE benefits such as school uniform allowance, books and scholarship.

REENA IS 15 YEARS OLD NOW

Mrs. Parboti Chawra from Thepelaguri, said that, they lived and is living a misery life; they could not even afford to buy mosquito net, soaps, mats, tarpaulins. But as they received it from Caritas Germany as a relief they felt very happy because these things were highly necessary for her family, as they had no source of income to buy the materials, she said. She also mentioned that, the relief kits helped them replace their old torn mosquito net with new one, used the hygiene materials for two-three days. But unfortunately, again, the second phase of flood (16th June 2022) submerged the village more destructively then the previous flood which occurred just a month ago. As a result, they had left the village and gone to higher surface land area to keep them safe.

They carried Caritas Germany relief materials like tarpaulin, mats, mosquito nets and some soaps along with them and spent the night in tents. She said that, these materials really helped them in second phase of flood, to shelter and protects themselves. The saddest part is that they have, almost nothing left in their home now, neither food nor the materials to cook food, all these things had flown out over flood water, she mentioned. Thus,

She told that the materials greatly helped them in second phase of flood, as they could equip and use the kits to make tents and other use. Furthermore, she said that it was a great initiative by Caritas India, that they have provided these particular things, in view, as a future perspective for further use in times of need. The outcome of the flood relief was very good as well as pleasing, because they could equip themselves with the materials for safety and household/domestic use. After all it helped them a lot to protect themselves from rain and sun during second phase of flood, and also, after they are back home from camps, the kits were helpful to them because there is no proper place at home to sleep just because of wet and muddy surface. So they made tent out of relief kits and are spending their night.

Parboti ChawraThepelaguri

Ranu Pandit is a widow leaving in Radhanagar. Ranu Pandit lost her husband 6 years ago due to a deadly sickness. Since then she is been working hard daily as labour and maintain her family. Ranu Pandit has two young daughter, both of them are studying. During this flood her house was severely damaged since it was a kaccha house. She and her daughter had to take refuge at nearby relief camp. But the relief provided by caritas India helps them to overcome the situation after the flood. They received all the items – Hygiene, food and Shelter Kits. They are very much thankful for the team as well as caritas India for helping them in this situation.

Ranu PanditRadhanagar

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