Malati Murmu — a struggling tribal woman from Jiling Sereng village, who had a big dream for the children of her village and was determined to fulfill it.
Since 2020, she has turned her own house into a school, where she teaches children from 85 families in the village. About 25 km from the ‘hilltop’ of Ayodhya hills in Purulia district, a remote and backward village — Jiling Sereng. Malti, an ordinary housewife there, is now teaching more than 80 children for free with a two-month-old baby in her arms.
Since the government school is far from the village, most of the children could not go to school regularly. The nearest school is 10-12 km away through dense forests, so many do not go to school after the fifth grade.
In 2020, when children were staying away from education due to the lockdown, Malti firmly decided —
“This time I will run a school in my house, and teach everyone for free.”
The journey started with a few children. Gradually, children from the entire village started coming to study with Malti Didi.
Initially, her husband objected, but he also bowed down in front of Malti’s unwavering spirit.
Later, he also stood shoulder to shoulder with Malti in this great work.
With the help of her husband, a hut was built with mud walls and a tin roof. A blackboard on the mud walls and a tarp on the mud floor were made into a school.
Malati Murmu, a high school graduate, started teaching there with her children. Along with Alchiki, Bengali and English are also taught. All of this is unpaid. Malati goes with her husband to buy books, notebooks and pens for the students from the city. Now the number of students is 60 above.
Today, this burning flame of education is spreading the light of education in this remote village, shrouded in the darkness of dense forests, nestled in the lap of the remote Ayodhya Hills of Purulia.
