Big flight of these small girls……

Meenakshi Jha is one of the Media Participants who travelled to Jabalpur for the Media Workshop organised by UNICEF.
By Meenakshi Jha.

If there is a will and determination to do something, then difficulties cannot stop your way. Two girls of Muzzafarpur in Bihar who had taken a pledge to change the picture of their village have done it with the help of UNICEF. These two girls have become role models for not only their village, but also for the neighboring areas. People salute their passion and look at them with astonishment, writes Meenakshi after paying a visit to Muzzafarpur.

The hard-working and committed girls of Bihar have made the elders lose their wits. The extent of knowledge of these girls about central and state government schemes have bemused all. The girls took a pledge to change the circumstances and through their determination even managed to achieve their goals. This scene is of Aitbarpur and Praruti villages of Muzzafarpur district. Neha Banoo of Aitbarpur and Tarannum Khatoon of Praruti who had embarked on a task, not only completed the job, but also astonished the people by implementing it successfully in many other villages.

Neha is a class 7 student of Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya in Muzzafarpur and Tarannum is a Class 5 student of the same school. When they stepped into the school, the atmosphere and environment here transformed their lives. This school also provides hostel facilities. The girls who always used to relieve themselves into the fields in their villages, had not made use of a toilet before. But when they saw the toilet in the hostel and the hygienic way in which it was maintained, they decided to make such arrangement in their villages too. They refused to go back to their villages whenever their parents came to the school to take them home. They now did not approve of the way of living of the villagers and people going out in the fields to defecate. They just could not understand how the situation could be transformed. Then, they got to know about UNICEF’s sanitation programme and in a jiffy thought of taking help from the organization. With the help of UNICEF, they constructed 70-80 toilets in not only their village but also in the nearby areas.

Earlier, there was no concept of a toilet in these villages. These girls provided information to the villagers about toilets. They also taught the villagers about how the villages should be kept clean and hygienic. They also explained them the advantages of maintaining cleanliness. Now, these girls are role models for not only their villages but also for nearby villages. The girls who earlier did not wish to go back to their respective villages, with the help of UNICEF changed the complete lay-out of their villages and nearby hamlets.