Bijhu Nijeni 2011 - MAADI

decided to send some teachers for training
to Kolkata. The level of teaching jumped.
The landowner gave the school more land.
More thatched rooms were constructed.
Judo training started at the school. The number
of students jumped to over 500. Today
the school extends to class X, something that
just could not have been imagined five years
ago. Most students are first-generation learners
and belong to peasant families which still
find it difficult to make two ends meet. Yet
the level of motivation is so high that rarely
does a child miss a class. At least half the
children in the school come from villages at
least 8 to 10 kilometres away. It is therefore
not an unusual sight to see children setting
out for school afoot or on cycles about two
hours before school starts.
One of the most interesting innovations
that families have made is the setting up
of small independent hostels in which three
or four children from a village stay over the
week. Children from distant areas sometimes
find it convenient to build a hut in a compound,
or rent a hut, and stay in it. There are at least
15 such establishments in Diyun. Most of
them have between three and four children
from six to fourteen. They cook their own
food at night, go to school in the morning,
come back and eat the food cooked over
night, study before the lights go out, and then
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2011 BB
get down to preparing for the next day. This
requires a level of commitment unseen in
urban areas. Underlying it is a firm conviction
that education is the tide that will lift
their boat.
And change is lighting up the horizon.
The children now dream of a future that
goes beyond the village. The older girls are
determined to leave the village. They
recognise that the small village without roads
or electricity cannot contain their ambition
and desires any longer. They dream of being
air hostesses and computer engineers. The
boys dream of becoming doctors and staying
on in the village and serving their families, their
people. A community which saw no future for
itself has become a self-confident, outgoing
community and has changed the environment
it lives in. The local tribes, the Singphos, the
Kamtis, Tangsas, the Tutsas, seeing the difference
the school has made to the lives of
the refugees, have started withdrawing their
own children from other schools and shifting
them to Sneha School. Consequently the lives
of the Chakmas have got intertwined with
those of the local communities, thus paving
the way for their integration into the area in
an organic manner. In an area fractured by
parochialism, insularity and suspicion, this
modest school has become a beacon of hope,
and survival.
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