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Jesuit college delivers results for Bihar villagers

Young people from one of India's most marginalized communities improve their job prospects through training
Jesuit college delivers results for Bihar villagers

Asha Deep students in Bihar state, India, sing during an alumni meeting held in March. (Photo by Asha Deep)

Published: May 19, 2016 03:03 AM GMT
Updated: May 19, 2016 03:04 AM GMT

In 2010 Jesuit Father Kolandaisamy Jesuraj went around 21 villages in the Musahari area of Bihar state looking for girls who have completed tenth grade to help them with further training.

But he was unable to find even one who had completed fifth grade.

Today, at least five girls have graduated 12th grade in just one village — Dumri-Pakri — that has some 45 families. The girls have also completed a technical training program that the Jesuits offer to further assist with their job prospects.

Mevish Masih, 20, considers herself lucky to have studied at the Jesuits' Asha Deep (Beacon of Hope), a community college that allowed her to get work outside of her village as a hotel receptionist in Durbanga town.

"Asha Deep changed my life," says the young woman, who now earns a monthly salary of 6,000 rupees (US$100).

"I'd tell the young people of Bihar, don't waste your time but come to Asha Deep if you really want to transform your life," says Masih of the college, which has a campus outside the town of Muzaffarpur.

Crippling village poverty

Bihar is known for the crippling poverty of its villages. Around 92 million of the eastern Indian state's 104 million people live in areas beset with caste and feudal structures that exploit the helplessness and illiteracy of the people.

A socio-economic survey of the state, released last September, says 65 percent of the people in the villages are landless. Around 37 percent of the state's population is indebted to private moneylenders. Most of them are being forced to pay interest as high as 60-120 percent per annum.

Because they lack education and skills, the state's impoverished youth are unable to escape poverty.

"They end up in very low earning jobs like agricultural laboring, brick making, construction work," says Father Jesuraj. "These are the type of jobs without bargaining power."

To get by, most of the poor have to take out loans from moneylenders who charge high interest rates. Because they struggle to pay back the loans many of the poor end up working in fields for landlords and continue a life of servitude for generations, says Father Jesuraj.

The priest began his work in the area by providing programs to help poor village women and to provide non-formal education for the children.

Most of that effort was focused on the Musahar community, who are considered the lowest in Bihar's caste-based society. They are the state's most oppressed, landless and marginalized community. Before beginning his work in the area only one boy from the community had studied up to the tenth grade.

Now the programs are aimed more broadly while retaining a special focus on young people from dalit, and tribal, lower caste and class backgrounds, says Father Jesuraj.

Asha Deep's training programs are aimed at developing their skills for industries such as hospitality, automobiles and printing.

The skill training programs began in 2010 with 90 students and since then over 2,000 students have been trained and employed in reputed companies, says Father Jesuraj.

Funding from the Federal Ministry of Rural Development via the Don Bosco Tech Society has also assisted Asha Deep's training programs.

"The real socio-economic situation of the rural youth of Bihar necessitates an education with a difference," says the priest adding that it aims at ending their exploitation and making them socially and economically independent.

Faheem Akhtar, 22, attended a course through Asha Deep in 2014. He now works as a machine operator in a factory where he makes some 10,000 rupees (US$ 150) a month.

"I wanted to learn to earn. Without my support my father would not be able to educate my younger ones. How long should he break his back to feed us all?" he asks.

Asha Deep additionally works with families to send children to school and they also run informal classes for children who dropout of schooling so they can continue their education.

A new appreciation for education

Asha Deep's success has managed to change how many of the Mushahar view education, says Subelal Manjhi, a landless laborer whose daughter Meena Kuamri made their Dumri Pakri village proud because of her studies.

"I could never imagine that a Musahar girl could study up to 12th grade and then get a job outside of the community," says Manjhi.

Kumari did a hospitality course through Asha Deep and got related employment. Now she wants to do a beautician course to find an even better job.

Manjhi said there was a time not long ago when girls who wanted to go to school would be scolded and even beaten up by their parents.

"They used to ask children: ‘What will you earn by going to school?' Your job is to help with household chores and look after the pigs," he says.

The same parents are now proud of their children getting an education at local government schools, says Manjhi.

Kumari says she feels really happy that she got an education and became able to earn for herself and her family.

"It is now an honor for our village community today to send children to schools," she adds.

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