"Education is a Right, Not a Privilege"

If you are able to read this blog, you are already more fortunate that about 50% of the women we met at Gandamunda.  In a state that has one of the highest illiteracy rates in the county, 47% of the people live below the poverty line, and around 80% are considered poor, people have to fight for everything if they want anything.

Madhyam set up a trip for Ben, Katrina and me to go to Sambalpur, which is a fairly rural city in western Orissa.  While there we went to the village of Gandamunda to meet with one of the women's self help groups (SHGs).  We were fortunate enough to be accompanied by Apurba (one of the guys that works in the office with us), Pradeep (who also works with Madhyam but is based in Sambalpur) and two older gentlemen who are also from Sambalpur.

 Apurba and Ben on the train

Katrina and me

One of the millions of pictures I took on the ride to Sambalpur

The premise of out trip to Sambalpur was for Katrina to get information for her project.  She is doing a client satisfaction survey on people who have received loans from MFIs.  Although her research is quite interesting I do not envy her in the sense a lot of her data will be obtained from surveys taken from people who speak only Oriya.  I have to say it is really debilitating not being able to understand the native language of the place in which you live and on a professional it is downright crippling.  Fortunately for us we had our leader and translator extraordinaire Apurba to lead the conversation in the self help group and help translate the survey for Katrina.  You could tell that these women were more used to be talked at rather than talked to so we were very grateful to have Apurba who was wonderful at engaging the women and connecting with them so they felt free to speak.

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Us receiving flowers from the women at the SHG


I do have to say one uncomfortable part of the day (besides waking up at 4 in the morning to catch out 6 o'clock train was when they gave us the flowers.  In India to show respect they touch your feet and it is extremely awkward to have someone who is 20 years your senior that has been through so much more than I could probably even fathom touch my feet.

Apurba and Katrina with the self help group

Seeing as I have never conducted a client satisfaction survey and completely useless at Oriya I left the room while they were conducting the survey and went outside to talk to the 2 older men that came along with us and of course play with the children.

One of the men that came with us had been an educator his entire life and had retired and the principal of a school.  He was explaining to me the education system of Gadamunda, where there are about 250 households.  By decree of the constitution of India it is to be free and compulsory for children to have primary education and 60 some-odd years after independence it is finally being made a reality.

Perhaps the most appealing aspect of children going to school in Ganamunda was the promise of a hearty meal.  Malnutrition has plagued this village for years and initially in the schools children were only fed dry food.  However a couple of years ago one of the education ministers made it a law that government run schools are to provide hot food and in the subsequent years there has been a significant decrease in malnutrition.  From what I saw there were no distended bellies and all the kids seemed to be in pretty high spirits.

Unfortunately in these government schools it is not all sunshine and rainbows.  Apparently in April, the government failed to deliver the textbooks and workbooks for the students, with a promise they would get them at the beginning of the next school year.

Some of the schoolgirls

This really makes you think about our education system.   So many times you hear complaints that our school textbooks are outdated and that they need new ones every one to two years.  God forbid they look up the new material on the internet (sorry Mom).  Children here are going to classes in one room school houses, in some cases with dirt floors, with no fans in the sweltering 100+ degree heat, and textbooks that just don't show up.

What is even more sickening is that fact that one year of college at a university in the U.S. is more than a vast majority of people in India will make in their entire lifetime.  There is this great sign in downtown Bhubaneswar with a plain green background and white lettering that states, "Education is a Right, Not a Privilege." No one should be restricted from receiving an education because they were born into a lowly caste, or that their parents need them to work or beg for a few rupees a day, or even if they or their parents do not make a small fortune each year in order to go college.