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On an ordinary day in Bihar, Seema Kumari finds herself engaged in her usual household chores when her father unexpectedly asks her to get ready as he was expecting visitors. Oblivious to the reason, she immediately warmed up and was directed to greet the incoming family.
Seema was surprised when the conversation between the two families turned to discussing marriage rituals. At the age of 17, she found herself in an unexpected situation. Memories of her older sister, who was also married at a young age despite having only completed sixth grade, rush back to her.
“I had no idea about fixing my marriage. After the family was gone, I protested to my father that I didn’t want to get married. My father asked me, ‘What are you going to do next?’” Seema recalls in conversation with her. India’s best.
Within Bihar, 40.8 percent of women, representing 4 out of 10, marry before reaching the legal age of 18. Out of the 38 districts of the state, 12 districts exceed the average prevalence of child marriage. It should be noted that Jamui, the birthplace of Seema, is one such district, along with Sobol, Purnia, Saharsa and Begusarai.
Child marriage is closely linked to extreme poverty and young girls are often forced into marriage in the absence of education and awareness. But on that day, Sima managed to get out of this loop. “I told my father that I wanted to become an auxiliary nurse-midwife (ANM. Luckily, he decided to support me, and my marriage talks stopped,” said the 22-year-old, a second-year student at RB Chandra Para Medical Nursing College, Jamui.
“If I hadn’t spoken up, I would have been forced into marriage like many other village girls. They marry young, become mothers early, and have health problems with their weakness. Today I feel strong. All of this was possible thanks to the efforts of Doctor sir. “I was excited to study thanks to his guidance,” she says.
Over the past two decades, Dr. Shankar Nath Jha, a pediatrician by profession, has volunteered to help children like Seema use education as a tool of empowerment. Like Seema, he helped 407 children from the district’s Moshahr community to break the shackles of child marriage and child labour.
Thanks to his efforts, today Seema is able to afford the college fee of Rs 1.5 lakh and also teaches about 30 children from her village community. Chopal.
The Musahir community, who are socially marginalized, lie at the bottom of the caste system in India. in Mushar Bhojpuri Literally means “rat eaters”. They often had to live on a diet of rodents. Although their former main occupation was catching rats, they now work mostly as agricultural laborers and brick kiln laborers.
The community lives in Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and some areas of eastern Uttar Pradesh. As per 2011 census, Bihar is home to at least 2.5 lakh sharecroppers.
Dr. Jha, who has been in the medical service for the past 40 years, frequently receives patients from the Machar community in his clinic. Explaining their socio-economic situation, he said: “Their children are malnourished. Even if their children died, they would not shed tears (because the death rate was high and they were often emotionally exhausted). I used to see skinny little girls with babies in their arms. Says the 70-year-old 1 year old: “It would be very painful to see that” India’s best.
“I often wonder if they graduate or at least learn to read and write, their lives can improve. But there is low awareness in society. They live in unsanitary conditions and engage in child labour. Not to mention girls, we won’t even find boys who have passed 10th grade. I wanted work for these children.
according to The smelter: a socio-economic study By the Ann Sinha Institute of Social Studies in Patna with the support of the National Human Rights Commission, education among the members of the community is almost non-existent, and the literacy rate is only six percent. The study notes that “government development programs have not reached them.”
Nor do the political parties show any interest in working for them. They get their votes for free street band (chicken) and Daru (alcohol). In schools, they were excluded and not allowed to sit with others,” he told Dr. Jha.
Address the root cause
In an effort to help these children, Dr. Jha began visiting the huts of the Musahir community living in the Dalit areas of the district. He decided to teach the children but found it hard to stay in place in the afternoon.
“The men got drunk after 2pm and walked lazily. It was difficult to convince them to send their children to study. The only advantage I had was that people knew and respected me because of my profession. No one protested when we started to educate the children.”
Together with Makeshwar founder of Samagra Sewa Sansthan, Dr. Jha started using part of his income and saved some time to visit the community. Gradually, he hired some tutors out of his own pocket to teach the children and involve them in sports, dance and debate programs.
We have focused on hygiene, education and employment. We started getting donations from individuals and my peers to distribute food, clothes, books, etc. Seeing this, more and more children got motivated and started to join the classes. These were all small steps, but the result was big,” says Dr. Jha, who is also a senior advisor to the nonprofit.
Today, nearly 5,000 children are associated with 85 centers (called the Community Culture Education Center) where 82 volunteers teach children basic education so that they are on par with their school peers. Since 2007 when the initiative began, as many as 5,000 children have attended schools. Currently, about 3,000 children are studying in the centers across Jamui.
Once educated, they will be empowered to break out of a life of toil. Bada doji to sap marian bab ho jaenji (Once the children are educated, they will get rid of all the misfortunes of poverty.) Societies that did not know the importance of education now see graduates among them. As a secondary benefit, girls are beginning to resist early marriage, children are leaving work jobs and starting to enter the mainstream,” he says.
For his work, Dr. Jha has been awarded the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Shiksha Puruskar, Bihar’s highest award in the field of education, by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in 2021.
“I grew up playing with children regardless of their class or community. My parents always taught me how to live in harmony with all communities. It gives me great joy to do something for this (sustaining) community even though I never thought that this would be It has such a great influence. Through this award, I have gained more recognition and support from my colleagues, even from foreign countries. I will continue this work in the remaining years of my life.
(Edited by Pranita Bhatt; All photos provided by: Makeshwar and Samagra Sewa Sansthan)
sources:
National Family Health Survey – 5 By Union Ministry of Health and Family Services.
Child Marriage in Bihar: Key Insights from NFHS-5 (2019-21) By United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Published in June 2022.
A study on Musahir community, Bihar state By AN Sinha Institute of Social Studies, Patna.
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