It was my first exam in a new school and after scoring decent marks in almost all the subjects, the teacher called me to the front of the class and cheered me on,” says Stifan Birhor, a student of M S Mahato High School, who recently passed matriculation with a whopping 84.6 per cent.
“This was the first time I was being cheered for studying, and I think that motivated me to study harder for the next exam”, he continued. With a smile beaming across the entire length of his face, there was a prominent presence of pride and excitement in Stifan’s words. And justifiably so! Belonging to the Birhor tribe, Stifan is one of those many children from Jharkhand who have found their roots in a sound educational environment. This enables them to study sincerely and break out from the shackles of abject poverty and rural hardships that today envelops the members of the Birhor tribe.
Scattered throughout Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal, the Birhors are traditionally nomadic by nature, who spend their entire lives in the jungles sustaining on natural resources collected from forests. And, with less than 10,000 members left in the tribe, their vulnerability as an age-old ethnic group of India comes across in dwindling numbers.
It is at this juncture that quality education and sound learning can play a pivotal role in gradually uplifting the nomadic tribes. With over 220 students enrolled in 7 residential schools across Jharkhand, Project Aakansha by Tata Steel Foundation is a strong foray into the dark shroud of illiteracy that surrounds the Birhors and Sabars, yet another nomadic tribe that is dependent on the forests for sustenance. This year, as many as nine students enrolled in the project completed their matriculation examination.
“Initially, I used to spend the entire day roaming around the village with my friends, wasting all my time, but after getting enrolled in the school, I found myself being busy with studies and once I scored well in my exams, there was no looking back at the old lifestyle”, says Charan Birhor, a student of M S Mahato High School enrolled under Project Aakansha, who scored 72 per cent in his matriculation exam. The project has not only enabled quality education by enrolling Birhor and Sabar children into residential schools and supporting them with tuition fees, but has gone ahead and produced many first-generation learners in their families. It has not only given the children a chance at sound education, but enabled them to imagine living in the reverie of becoming a doctor, or an engineer someday.
Project Aakansha therefore aims at bringing a paradigm shift in the lives of Birhors and Sabars one child at a time. “I would initially find myself highly uninterested in attending classes, but eventually as I started understanding what was being taught and looked back on my life of collecting firewood from the forest, I found enthusiasm and interest in going to school”, says Shakuntala Birhor, a student of Carmel School, who scored 77% in her matriculation. Today, Shakuntala dreams of becoming a doctor and helping people in need. And, in summation this is where the project draws its vitality and energy from!