Stories of Hope

For 8-year-old Sabiya Khatun, who attends a government school in Solgohalia village, West Bengal, English and Mathematics were subjects to fear. Despite her best efforts, she could not cope up with the academic curriculum of her class. Sabiya felt isolated, as she was finding it difficult to battle her learning disability. As a consequence, she started bunking school. Due to lack of income at home, her father, who is a fish seller in the local market, could not make her attend tuitions in the local area.
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Saika Bano and Saleha Bibi are sisters hailing from a remote village Modidih in Jharkhand. The village is predominantly populated by Muslims and Schedule Caste families. Both of them study in eleventh standard at Government School. Though not an adult, Saleha was married off at a tender age following the norm of their village where girls are married off as soon as they hit puberty. Their father and four elder brothers earn their livelihood as daily wage labourers and they live with their families in Kolkata.
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Karathittu is predominantly an Irula tribal hamlet in Tamil Nadu. The region is geographically very vulnerable due to its close proximity to the coast and backwater. The Irular community is primarily engaged in agriculture labour, rat and snake catching and other menial and low income jobs. The community faces extreme poverty as they have very limited skills and options to secure their livelihood. The rate of illiteracy is alarmingly high and people from the tribe are often ostracised by other caste groups. All families are largely dependent upon unstable and irregular work and their financial security and well-being remain a matter of concern.
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Shakti Prasanna is a farmer from Tiruvannamalai district, Tamil Nadu who owned 10 acres of land in the region. In 2012, when the Government executed the MNREGA scheme, there was severe shortage of labours and he had to discontinue farming.
Agro-forestry came as an alternate livelihood option to him. Shakti had no technical know-how about agro-forestry and was totally dependent on farming to sustain his family and himself. To add to his woes there was water scarcity which was deeply affecting his produce and made farming extremely challenging.
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Neha comes from a large family set up, where she lives with her parents and three siblings. The family of six is entirely dependent on her father’s meagre income which he earns by working as an assistant at a mobile shop. Neha studies at J Block Government school in Sangam Vihar, Delhi which is supported by our corporate partner Royal Bank of Scotland through our workplace giving programme Give As You Earn. Though economically disadvantaged, Neha is a studious and bright student who scored 82% in her last examination. She, like most other students dreaded Mathematics and failed to understand the subject. Read more to know how Shikshaantra programme helped her overcome her fear of Mathematics
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