The girl from a Dalit family had almost given up her hope of returning to school.But much to her surprise, she has been re-enrolled in the school-thanks to the school management´s decision to provide food subsidies to children from the economically marginalized families. [break]
After many poor students dropped out in order to support their family, many public schools including Gyanodaya Secondary School in the district have decided to launch ´Village Education Food Store Trust´ to support their families so that the children could rejoin school. The trust, which has been established by locals of four village development committees, collects staple food items such as wheat, maize, rice, and potato and provides them to the needy families.
“We will provide food subsidies to those families who cannot afford sending their children to school,” said Yam Bahadur Kayat, principal of Gyanodaya Secondary School.
The concerned Village Development Committees and Gaja Youth Club (GYC), Baglung has also been providing financial support to the trust.
According to President of GYC, Parmananda Kadel, the trust has been established in 11 schools in Bawang, 12 in Bahoragau, 8 in Tara and 11 in Adhikarichaur village.
Secretary of Bawang VDC, Khadak Thapa said the VDC and GYC have provided Rs. 3, 00,000 for the trust.
“The Village Education Committee will distribute the amount collected for the fund to the poor families only if they are in desperate need of money,” he added.
Dil Kamal Chetteri, coordinator of GYC, said the club has also distributed educational material to over 700 students in the villages. “We provided educational material to the students apart from providing food subsidies. Our main aim is to bring the poor children to school,” said he.
After the establishment of the trust, the 42 schools in the villages have also started distributing lunch to the children from the economically marginalized families.
“Our life has been a little bit easy after the school started providing us food subsidies. We are sending our children to school now,” said Dil Bahadur BK, father of Nardevi.
The District Education Office believes that the trust will help improve the quality of education in the district.
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