Most people in my community are uneducated and work as daily wage labourers. When I go out in our community, I see women and men engaged in wage work or household work. I see children playing. I see some children working in the agricultural fields. I see girls planting paddies, hoeing, sowing, harvesting wheat and storing grains. There’s a lot of poverty and not enough cultivable land where I live, so a number of people migrate to other cities because they can’t find employment in the village. This poverty prevents a majority of people from studying. We also have to face caste discrimination and people of other communities physically abusing or sexually harassing Dalit women from my community.

Even though it has its issues, I like my village very much. I was born here, so I will always have an emotional connection with this place. I love going outside and playing with other children. But what I love the most is my family. I have two sisters and one brother. My brother does stitching work outside the home, while my parents work as labourers. I also have to go to work in the fields with my parents because of the difficulty in managing expenses of the house.

My parents have always felt it necessary to send me to school because they didn’t want their daughter to be illiterate like them. They don’t want me to spend my life working in someone else’s field, they want me to think about the future and prosper.

Education has always been very important to me too. I believe that we can only develop as individuals through learning.

This attitude toward girls’ education isn’t common in our village, however. There’s a lot of discrimination between girls and boys. Our community thinks that there’s no benefit in teaching girls and that they’re inferior to boys. One of the main reasons why girls from the community do not complete their education and drop out instead is our patriarchal society and the gender discrimination in it.

As a Dalit girl, I have also faced caste discrimination in school and been shamed for it. Since there’s no government school in our village after eighth grade, we have to commute to a school that’s very far away from our homes. As I mentioned, Dalit girls and women face increasing rates of sexual violence. If something happens to a girl while she walks to school, if she’s attacked or harassed, other parents hesitate to send their daughters to school as well and this causes even more girls to drop out.

I feel very sad when I see girls drop out. It seems like when a girl studies, not only does she succeed, but her family succeeds as well. Why wouldn’t everyone want that for their daughters and themselves? But many parents don’t seem to realize the benefits of educating girls. They don’t see that when a girl leaves school, her future becomes bleak and that she will never be able to stand on her own feet.

I know how it feels when you drop out of school because I too once had to. I had passed high school and gotten accepted into Mahatma Gandhi Inter College, but in the twelfth grade it became too expensive for us. I had been worried for some time that it might happen, wondering how I would be able to study further and complete the next class. So even though I wasn’t surprised when my family could not afford ₹6,000 that I needed for my admission, I was still disappointed. I knew that my parents really wanted me to study but between supporting me, my sisters and brother, they couldn’t afford the education and upbringing for all of us.

My studies stopped then and so, it felt, did my life. I was so sad. But I did not give up on my dream of completing my studies one day. As I worked in the fields with my parents, I collected money for my studies. I was saving up so that I could pay my tuition fees myself.

It was around that time that the Malala Fund-supported organization Samudaik Kalyan Evam Vikas Sansthan (SKVS) came to my village to help students who had dropped out of school to re-enrol again. SKVS held a meeting for out-of-school girls in our village that I went to. The SKVS team connected me to Kishori Sangathan and spoke to me about the importance of education. They discussed the same with my parents too and told them they’d help me get readmitted to school.

Two years after I dropped out of school, I enrolled again. I was so happy knowing that I would be able to complete my education and fulfill my dreams. However, two years was a big gap in my education and it was a challenge to start my studies again. I found it very hard to complete the course. In addition to my academic challenges, I also had social challenges. All my friends had already graduated and I found it difficult to make new friends.

But I’m still so happy to be in school. My life and my future are back on track. My favourite subject is Hindi because it is my mother tongue, I love to talk in Hindi. I recently had a chance to participate in the kabaddi competition where our team won the second position. I was very proud when we got the prize.

also feel proud that there have not been as many girls dropping out of school in our village because of SKVS and that people have started to understand the importance of education. Many people know now that girls’ education is a right. Due to my example and my courage, many other girls in the village have been inspired to start their studies.

I wish there was better, permanent support from the government to support the education of girls like me. It is the right of every girl to be able to go to school, but the government isn’t doing enough to help us. There should be more girls’ schools in my community so that girls don’t have to travel so far or worry about harassment along the way. If there is a school near our village, no girls will drop out. All girls will study and there will be no fear of harassment and sexual violence along the way to school.

Additionally, the government should also make sure that education isn’t so expensive. The costs of tuition, study material and commute are difficult for poor families to afford. I’ve seen how these expenses make a difference for girls when choosing between a life with or without education.

Finally, we need to change the mindset of communities in India that mock girls’ education and don’t see its value. We need more parents to be like mine, who support their daughters’ dreams. Educated girls create a better society for everyone and more people need to know this.

I plan to create a change for girls’ education in my community through my future work as a teacher. I want to teach girls and support them. I want to make sure they understand the benefits of education not only in their own lives, but for their family and their community. I want to make them aware about gender and caste discrimination. I want to create a classroom environment that provides equal opportunities for everyone.