India is a country where 70% population belong to rural and semi urban areas, mostly from villages and small cities where people still lack access to basic needs such as education, electricity, medical facilities, transports facilitie, etc. Basic facilities related to education and quality of education tends to lack in many schools. The infrastructure, qualified teachers and basic extra-curricular facilities like games, art, music and other activities are not available in these schools. This is an hindrance in the overall development of children. Mainly female students face more problems as they are not permitted by their families to attend school and even those who are, dropout generally in between 5th and 8th grade. This is mainly because high schools tend to be situated far away from their homes and parents consider it unsafe to send their girls to these schools. Some girls start doing household chores and in such situations, it is difficult to imagine a young female student aspiring to become an engineer, a doctor, a scientist or anything that requires education to achieve.
The mindset of people about girls in villages tends to be that they are mostly interested in music, dance, art and craft and they do not take interest in science and math. I organized a green energy workshop in Sardar Patel Gurukul Academy, Air force station, BaxiKaTala, Lucknow, where we had kids from 6th to 8th grade participating for solar lamp and toy car making Do-It-Yourself workshops. The most astonishing fact was that during this workshop, there was equal participation of girls and boys. Clearly, the mindset of the village elders have to change in order for girls to reach their potential.
During this workshop, I met a girl named Angil, studying in grade 6th. She was very enthusiastic to participate in this workshop as soon as I started talking about it. She really took interest in whole workshop by asking questions about the workings of solar energy and other energy sources. It was really fascinating to see her curiosity and vigor, especially at her age when the level of technology and science involved in this activity was quite advanced.
“She designed her own solar LED table lamp for studying as her village and household suffers from frequent power cuts. She wants to become a scientist in order to find out more about other affordable lighting solutions for people who are suffering due to unavailability of sufficient power. “
She designed her own solar LED table lamp for studying because the area where she resides is a rural area that has frequent power cuts, making it difficult to study with a kerosene lamp. She wants to become a scientist to find other affordable lighting solutions for people who are suffering due to unavailability of sufficient power. It was nice meeting students like her as it gives us encouragement and boosts our moral to work in this domain.