India: Using Knowledge Learned to Save Others—Bharati's Story
Bharati is a 13-year old girl who lives in Rudrapur village in Bihar, India. She enrolled in the Girls Access To Education (GATE) class in 2008, run by World Education partner, SAKHI, and completed the nine-month course in January 2009.
A week after Bharati graduated from her GATE literacy class in January, two strangers came to her village and summoned a village meeting. They outlined their program in Patna, the capital city of Madhubani District, offering higher education services integrated with a practical vocational program in sewing and stitching. Targeting adolescent girls, their program was outlined as a viable livelihood training where once completed the program the girls would be placed in a factory earning a good salary. Many villagers attended this meeting, including parents of seven out-of-school girls who professed an interest in the program and requested that the strangers come back after a week to pick up the girls.
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Girls attending a GATE class in Rudrapur village, Madhubani District, learn how to avoid being trafficked while they learn to read.
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Bharati did not attend this meeting, and was out cutting grass the next day when some of the girls of her village told her about the meeting and seven parents' decisions to enroll their girls. She was immediately reminded of her learnings from the GATE classes that stressed issues of personal safety and had highlighted ways traffickers lure young girls into big cities under the guise of employment. She learned the names of the seven girls and decided to pay them a visit. Taking her GATE books with her, Bharati visited the individual girls and their mothers to share the stories and lessons she had learned. As expected many of the girls and their mothers had not thought of the possibility of exploitation. They had been interested in the opportunity to gain skills and earn money. After meeting with Bharati, six of the seven girls decided not to leave. However, an older girl, who was 17 years old, remained insistent that she was willing to take a chance.
Believing that the girl needed more information, Bharati approached six of her former GATE classmates and asked them to accompany her again to the girl's house. This time the girl listened to them and agreed to rethink before leaving. She finally told them that she had decided against going.
When the traffickers returned with a jeep a week later, Bharati and her GATE classmates met the men as they were was entering the village and stopped them. They told the men that they were welcome to take the girls if they wanted to go, but first they wanted to check on the group the men mentioned. They asked for the contact information and details on the program, so that they could call and verify the organization. The traffickers ignored them, turned their jeep around, and quickly left. They have yet to return to the village.
Bharati's mother, a GATE Class Management Committee member, is very proud of her daughter and wants her to study enough to become a teacher. Since then, both she and Bharati have visited the parents of the seven girls, who have agreed to enroll their daughters into the next GATE class starting in April.
The Girls Access To Education Program, conceived and launched by World Education in Nepal in 1998, integrates adolescent health and girls' empowerment information with literacy training so that as girls learn how to read, write and do basic mathematics, they also learn about basic nutrition, reproductive health, the consequences of early marriage, early pregnancy, unsafe sex, STIs, and HIV and AIDS, the dangers of trafficking, child rights, and safe migration. World Education has built on the Nepal program and has been implementing GATE in Bihar, India, since 2006. Many GATE graduates re-enroll into the formal school system or participate in vocational or practical skills training that enable them to support themselves and their families over the long-term.
Bharati's story is one example of girls who could play a role in changing their lives and those of others are provided with education opportunities.
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Bharati and her friends with visitors in front of the GATE classroom
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