The Beginning

This was the beginning of my journey with Priyanka Barot about 5 years ago in 2014 when I volunteered for an organization called Make A Difference.

She lives in the Juna Vadaj slum area of Ahmedabad, Gujarat. When she reached 11th grade, she was accepted in school to study science stream and was promised very low fees. However, later the school turned their backs and refused to give her the final mark-sheet till she paid more fees. I along with my friends managed to go to higher authorities and get the mark-sheet, however it was too late as local university admissions had stopped by then for the academic year.

Not feeling demotivated, we got her admitted to IGNOU (Indira Gandhi National Open University) in the B.Sc course. At the time of admissions, we were informed that they take classes on behalf of IGNOU in one of the reputed colleges of the city but it turned out to be less than true. There were only "self study" classes in the college. So a few of our friends who had background in science stream would take her tuition regularly and teach her various concepts with the objective of strengthening her basics. Somewhere in middle of all the conversations, we recognized that her mind is in B.Sc only due to her low scores but her heart has always been to study nursing.

The Climax

After one year, came the next round of admissions and we decided to start the procedure for her admissions in B.Sc as well as give a thought for nursing. We enrolled her into a B.Sc course in one of the local colleges in Ahmedabad. At the same time, the principal at Ahmedabad Institute of Nursing (AINS) agreed to give Priyanka direct entry if she had any seats empty once the regular admissions following the normal criteria were completed. We couldn't thank her more and our excitement jumped off to next level as we've always believed that educating a women is like educating a generation. 

Our patience got tested as it took a while but somewhere in the middle of October'17  we got a confirmation from AINS Ahmedabad that she has got the admission and we all including Priyanka were thrilled to hear that.There was a small roadblock  - we needed to accumulate a sum of Rs. 1 lakh as her first year fees in less than 9 days. Just out of college and months to job, our bank accounts were not in that great shape but it took about five days and 4 hours to be precise to collect the sum from our friends, friends of friends and close relatives. It was the joint effort of 34 donors which made us believe that child like Priyanka can still dream in daylight.

Happy Ending

We have three more years to go with additional expenses for her books and commute. We expect she should be comfortably able to complete her nursing with the funds target of Rs. 5,00,000

College @ Rs. 1,00,000/year for four years = Rs. 4,00,000/-
Books @ Rs. 15,000/year for four years = Rs. 60,000/-
Commute @ Rs. 800/month for 40 months = Rs. 32,000/-

 


Education not only let one fly but also allows one to stand on their own feet when they fall - Anonymous