Tara Lodha: Revisiting Lost Dreams, (Guna, MP)

Tara Lodha, from village Paderkhedi in district Guna, Madhya Pradesh, was just seven years old when her father died. That was 10 years back. With the demise of the main earning member of the family, a deluge of problems flowed in. Her mother is not literate and all the family had in terms of assets was a farmland in a hilly area. Her mother took up the responsibility of the family by growing vegetables and selling them in the open market. Tara is the elder sister with two younger brothers.

Despite a series of problems, she managed to complete her studies up to class ten. After that, sensing that it was virtually impossible for her mother to support her education any more, she dropped out and started helping her mother in the vegetable farm. Deep within her heart, however, she always had this aspiration to learn more, because she realized that this could land her a job. That, eventually, would help her family more than anything else.

When team GIDF approached the village Padarkhedi and started forming e-shiksha batches, we met this girl during door to door visit activity. She told us that she is quite keen to continue with her studies but can’t because of her family’s poverty. Our field workers developed rapport with her and had interaction with her family members. Finally, Tara was allowed by her family to take admission to the e-shiksha project.

We have also enrolled her in our personality development classes. Her mother has started a small scale kirana shop that she operates from her home and has decided to educate her daughter. For Tara, this is nothing less than revisiting her lost dreams. Her only target now is to achieve enough efficiency through the e-shiksha model and build a system of support for her family. The coming of ACM GIDF has added a whole lot of meaning to her life.