Help 3,500 Girls Like Pragati Stay In School

During the coronavirus, staff are supporting communities in their local area, ensuring that children and families receive adequate food, water and sanitation at this time. Some hostel premises have been used for quarantine purposes. In the near future, we are reviewing when the students can safely return to their hostel environments. In the meantime, here is a report from Abha (name changed), 15 years old, who wrote this before the hostel was closed and usually studies and lives in Nagpur girls hostel. 

My name is Abha (name changed). I am 15 years old, studying in 10th class and came to this hostel, when I was studying in the fifth grade. My village is Kathlabodi, in Nagpur.

My house is made of mud, which has two rooms.  We are a total of four members in the house, me, my parents and one brother. 

Since we don't have our own farms land, my parents work hard doing labor work.  Every day, wages of only Rs 150/-(less than 2 pounds) are paid as wages to my father. 

In my village, there is school until the fourth standard, then we have to move from our village to another village to study from the fifth and there is no regular means of moving to another village.

I was fortunate that one of my relatives is an alumni student from Bahujan Hitay hostel, Nagpur. So she filled out my form for the hostel; I came to the hostel for an interview and got selected. 

I like the hostel’s cool environment with all facilities in the hostel, 24 hours water supply, fan, electric supply, a good tutor ; this was all very new and surprising for me. I was very happy when I saw a big hostel, but feared how I would survive. Everyone used to laugh at me due to my rough language and that’s why I felt so lonely and different from other girls. But my seniors and hostel warden helped me expand my language. I sit in the hostel and learn new words from the dictionary. This helped me not just to expand my vocabulary but also helped me to increase my confidence level day by day in every field. 

I like dancing, games, drawing and other activities. I got inspired from the teachings of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, the Buddha, Savitribai Fule, and other great people. 

In the hostel 2-3 medical checkups are conducted every year, which helps me to know whether my height, weight and HB is increasing or not. For my health, the hostel provides healthy food, and I get a variety of vegetables and fruits. Daily in morning we do exercise and I play games in evening. I stay happily in the hostel environment. 

I participate in hostel elections and got elected as cultural minister, at that time I was very happy. I sing songs, dance, and do drama so I am getting more appreciation for my creative arts, I help all girls to become more active and stay energetic. 

In hostel I participated in each and every workshop, which was conducted to aware students about educational, career guidance, personality development, gender equality, reproductive health awareness, study with inspiring games activity, craft works, preparing of science model and project with using waste material, etc. One of that workshops regarding career guidance inspired me a lot which was taken by Rishikesh Sir, it provoked me to study hard and to achieve my own identity, by which I can help other people too. I want to become a doctor in the future, to help my village people with little money, and definitely with hard study I will become a doctor one day.

I thank all the people who have helped me to grow wise and built good habits, I am also thankful to my hostel wardens, they always trigger my inner abilities to build up my personality.

Thank you.