Help us to make Kumkum access quality education post-COVID outbreak

Kumkum is a 10-year-old child who studies in 4th grade in a nearby school in her village in Madhya Pradesh, namely, Jhutawad. The village is at a distance of 80 km from Ujjain district where the majority of the population used to rely on agricultural activities for its sustenance until the struggle to make the ends meet called many families to migrate to nearby towns for better opportunities.

Kumkum's family is among a few left in the agriculture business and all the members spend their major part of the day in the fields. Her family wants to see her getting a quality education. Kumkum, since, her early childhood has lived at her Nani's home (maternal grandmother's home) to be able to attend comparatively better schools as compared to her native village.

Due to the COVID outbreak, the most immediate change that she witnessed was her annual exams getting cancelled for which she had prepared a lot. Earlier, she was supported by her family members, then and now, through her course work but this soon came to an end when her aunt saw a dearth of resources to make her learn. Also, with the onset of the harvest season, the family was left without a moment to spare on her education.

Kumkum is seen to be designing her learning experiences on her own now. She loves to peek her head into the old books of his uncle, who himself had been a former student of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya. She can be often spotted going through English texts in those books and marked difficult words with her blunt pencil so that she could ask their meanings as her uncle arrived in the evening from the fields. Even while she is watching TV with her family, she tries to write the songs as and when they played. She says "This will help me increase my memory and writing speed".

Children like Kumkum deserves the best opportunities to access quality education. There's a big gap that the COVID outbreak has created.

HOW YOU CAN FILL THE GAP?

To fill this gap, we urge you to give up your one-time dine-out amount as less as a 1000 bucks to help us create a competent network of the local youth to bridge the gap. MGMD is reaching out to 500 children through local youth change-makers to build upon their academic skills to boost their selection chances to Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya.

Every penny that you donate will go into the capacity building of such youth and creating platforms that provide every child with an environment that builds upon their skills to gain education from the best quality institutions.

Our bank details:

Ac no.- 50200043725691

Ac Name: Zariya Welfare Foundation

Bank: HDFC

IFSC: HDFC0002449