A 12-year-old Indian girl, who was abandoned at a railway station in Bihar as an infant, has become the head teacher at a school in Kusumbhara, her adopted village.
Bharti Kumari teaches Hindi, English and maths to 50 village kids who would otherwise receive no education. She gives them lessons every morning and evening, under the shade of a mango tree. In between, she attends a state school in Akhodhi Gola, a two-mile walk away. In her school uniform, she passes on the knowledge gleaned from her lessons to the village children, aged between four and 10, in her own class.
"I have a long day. My school is from 10am to 3pm and I study late. This is what I love doing. I enjoy teaching children their ABCs as well as the Hindi alphabets," Times Online quoted her as saying. Kusumbhara is a poverty-stricken village 87 miles from Patna, the state capital.
Rampati, Bharti's adoptive father, an impoverished farmhand, said he would not follow the rural tradition of pushing girls into early marriages but would allow her to continue her studies.
Can we imagine how the world would be if we had more Bharti kumaris and Rampatis ? If each one of us can do even a fraction of what they are doing ..
