NEW DELHI: When the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) executive director Ann Venemam launched the State of the World's Children 2006 report in London on Wednesday, one of the two children who were with her was Gudiya Khatun, a 14-year-old girl from a remote village of Gaya district in Bihar. She had been invited as a "shining example" to the world of how education empowers individuals to break out of adversity and exclusion, and enables them to play a positive role in their personal and social lives.
Eldest of the six children, Gudiya's biggest battle in life has been to get education. With girls in her impoverished community excluded from a formal education and with her father not earning, she has had to overcome many obstacles in her quest for learning. But a few visits to an informal learning centre supported by UNICEF changed her life.
Gudiya's first hurdle was convincing her mother since her father was away in Mumbai in search of a living. She was expected to earn money and also help her mother in her daily chores. But she knew if she was ever to improve her family's situation, she had to do more than fetch water and work in the fields.
She got herself enrolled at a local education centre of the Mahila Shiksha Kendra run jointly by the Government and UNICEF that takes adolescent girls who have been denied education and gives them intensive instruction for up to nine months to get them into the school system. Gudiya now attends a regular school despite an 8-km walk each day. She has also joined karate classes at the school she know attends, and wants to become a karate instructor after her schooling.
