Lookout World, with kids like Bharti Kumari coming along, you’re never going to be the same. Abandoned as a baby in a Bihar, India train station, the girl has decided to take the education of her peers in Kusumbhara village into her own hands—she is now the headmistress of their makeshift, improvised school.
Bharti walks two hours each day to her lessons at a school in another village, and gladly attends classes from 10AM-3PM, but before she leaves in the morning, and after she returns home each afternoon, Bharti sits by a tree and teaches lessons in English language, math, and Hindi to 40 of her fellow villagers. These are the only lessons the 40 pupils, aged 4-10, get access to—like the ten million other Indian children whose parents are too poor to allow their children to pursue an education (they are, instead, required to work to try and help feed the family). Intensifying the struggle, since this summer, 30 schools in this turmoil-filled region have been blown up by Maoist rebel terrorists.
In spite of the violence, oppression, and odds of life all stacked against them, the kids gather at the mango tree each day to glean what they can from Headmistress Bharti.
Where does the buck stop in each of our lives? If not me, who?
Change by Doing 