Jitender Jeet was one of five siblings. She was the third child and comes from a very poor family, in Kangra District, in Himachel Pradesh, India. The parents were illiterate as expected under such circumstances. Her dream was to become a lawyer and as a young girl, she was not aware of the hurdles that she would face to. Like most children, she expected to achieve her dream if she worked hard in school. Her parents could not afford to buy her the basic books. One local teacher promised her some second hand books and asked her to come by her house with her mother. She needed the books badly as she could not take her finals to pass her high school. The teacher extracted house hold work from her and her mother and at the end she just sent them home with a bottle of oil for burning some lamp.
Jitender was devastated and went home in tears! Fortunately, one of her father’s labor friends assisted her in getting her the much needed books. Although she passed her finals in high school, she had no one to turn to in terms of how to proceed to the next level. Lack of funds and guidance stopped her well short of achieving her desired dream of becoming a lawyer. Today, she works hard and is constantly upgrading her skills to see how to effectively bring change to the lives of these rural children. She attends training classes and works with other NGO’s during the day, so that she might bring her knowledge and skills to her village. She sees herself in the bright and hardworking young girls and hopes that she can be instrumental in changing at least some of their destiny by providing support and proper guidance beyond basic education that does not give them any skills to find a decent job and be financially independent of the patriarchs of the society and the family.

Inderjeet, the oldest of the five children and sibling of Jitender Jeet, was the head of the family. While her parents went to do labor jobs, she had the responsibility of running the entire household and had no time to do her homework. She was very bright and managed to complete her home work at school, before heading home as she knew that it would be impossible to do any school work at home. She and Jitender walked 8 KM, everyday to their school. They had no school uniforms and would plead with their school to provide them with hand outs. With much struggle, she completed her 12th class and was promptly married to an unusually kind and supportive man, Satish. Satish recognized his wife’s talent and while he continued to do labor work, he managed to pay for her to complete her Master’s degree and obtain a bachelor’s in education. Satish and Inder have one daughter and they are determined to give her all the support and training that she would need to succeed. She also has the support of her aunt, Jitender and is already showing great signs of compassion and love towards those who are less privileged than herself. Inderjeet says that she has developed such a deep rapport with the children, who attend their program, that she believes that the need is mutual. She has metaphorically adopted all the children she works with and is determined to make some difference in the rural town of Kangra.

Satish Kumar also comes from a very large and extremely poor family. His father was the only working member, and he was the 6th child of a total of 9 children. He had to drop out of school as the family needed money and he started working in the mines at a very early age. He wanted to educate his three sisters, but unfortunately they had already adopted the existing system, that is to get married at an early age. Satish was very sad, but never gave up his hope of helping others in their education. As was mentioned earlier, he was the pillar and the support behind his wife’s phenomenal education for this area. He now hopes, his daughter will go even further up and succeed in any field that she decides to pursue. His large heart, like the two sisters, wants the children in the village to have opportunities to grow and succeed. His eyes light up every evening after he comes home from work and sits with the children and watches them with kindness and love. Although he is not educated himself, he is using his labor skills to build a place with amenities for the after school program. “Anmol Shiksha”.