Help 3,500 Girls Like Pragati Stay In School

I am Samiksha, from a small village of just 25 families in Nagpur district. I'm 13 years old and I attend one of the girls hostels supported by you.

There is no school in our village, we have to walk 2.5 km away from village for the school and that is only available until 4th standard (aged 10). The secondary school is 5km away from our village.  We have only had electricity in our village for the past 3 years, so before that I was learning in school without electricity. We do not have running water, so we need to get our water from a hand pump. There's only one in the whole village! We are a family of 5 people, mother, father, me and 2 younger sisters.  My family’s economic condition is not good. We have just a 2-acre farm but all the farming depends on the rain. We grow cotton on our farm otherwise my mother and father go to the other farm for daily wages work and get some money to continue our livelihood.

I took admission in this hostel when I was in 5^th std and aged 10 years old. My cousin helped us to find this hostel, When I came here I found very hard to speak fluently with other girls because my language was not the same as the city standard. I am from a Tribal background, hence my language had a rural and tribal touch. But hostel’s elder girls help me to improve my way of speaking, which increased my confidence level. Due to that now I speak well with all the other girls very easily.

In our hostel, we have a student parliament to run the different day-to-day activities smoothly and in a good manner. There are two levels of student ministers, main ministry and aspirant ministry. These students are elected by the other students. We take on roles such as Education Minister, Health Minister or Sports Minister. Aspirant is for the younger students who are learning how to be leaders by supporting the main ministry. I am a chief minister of aspirant ministry. This means I'm responsible for making sure everyone in the aspirant ministry completes their responsibilities and works well as a team. Being chief minister develops so many qualities in me, like leadership, honesty, stage daring, transparency, patience, working in a group and handling others well. I applied these qualities when I am in class and when I don’t get what the teacher has taught I raised my hand and can ask the teachers about subjects confidently.

In the beginning, when I started at the hostel, I had a lot of fear about Maths and I found it hard but with the help of other girls and hostel warden my fear got reduced.  In the village, I had developed a lot of fears of superstitious activities but after I came here, I learned science subject and theories.  Warden also told us the scientific reasons behind the superstitious activities that took place. I have learnt that everything is science-based and there is nothing called magic and my concept got cleared and that’s why now I love science subject.

I am better at studying at the school and my marks have been improving. I got 78% in half yearly exam, which was an increase from 68% in last year’s October 2017 exams. We gain lots of knowledge here as hostel arranged so many workshops like, personal safety education, which create awareness about own body parts, its sensitivity and self-esteem, gender equality, reproductive health, reasoning &logical thinking ,learn to learn etc. which help us to figure out our daily routine and focus on study.

We get plenty of meals in the hostel and tasty food too that we do not get at home. Before I came here my weight was 36kg now it has increased by 7kg, because here we get seasonable fruits, green vegetable, sprouts, eggs, different types of pulses. I enjoy being active and I always take initiative in games. My favourite games are kabaddi and cricket. After I came here, I took participation in various dances, dramas, drawing competitions; because of Bharatnatyam (a classical Indian dance) class my interest in dance got increased. English spoken classes have reduced my fear of English and now English is easy to understand, now I speak a  little bit of English.

I want to learn a lot. As now  I am chief minister of aspirant ministry in hostel I want to become a leader and an honourable person in society and serve society. I want become IAS Officer (senior civil servant) in future I will serve for society, for this hostel and my mother & father.

Thank you so much everyone for your help to develop my personality and surely I will make you all proud.