Mariaelena Figueredo

Oct 31, 2023 | villagesquare.in | Gurvinder Singh |Jyoti Thakur |Mariaelena Figueredo |Shveta Jadhav

It is commonly called the “Ganj”. McCluskieganj is quite a mouthful. A tongue-twister as twisted as its perfect past and a tense present and future. McCluskieganj is a charming hill town perched on the Chota Nagpur Plateau in Jharkhand, about 65km northwest of Ranchi, and is often affectionately referred to as “Mini-England”. It bears witness to a fading legacy – that of the Anglo-Indians, once a thriving community that built the town and now stands as a mere remnant of its glorious past.

Oct 30, 2023 | villagesquare.in | Jyoti Thakur |Mariaelena Figueredo |Shveta Jadhav

With several traditional art forms dying and those that remain unappreciated, life had become a bed of thorns for Maya Ram. He could never avail formal education owing to the financial crunch and lack of access to quality education near his village in Indergarh tehsil of Rajasthan’s Bundi district. Ram (25) learnt terracotta pottery early in his childhood – a skill passed on to children of his community through generations.

Oct 30, 2023 | villagesquare.in | Mariaelena Figueredo |Shveta Jadhav |Nasir Yousufi

Life in the tribal Munda community in Jharkhand is synchronised with the changing rhythms of nature, the seasons, the rising and setting of the sun, and not by the time on the clock. Members of the community, which lives in close harmony with nature, are often not educated and face the social evil of alcoholism. They now see education as a necessity for progress. In Chengde village of Rania block, they have found a potent means in mohalla classes.

Oct 15, 2023 | villagesquare.in | Mariaelena Figueredo |Shveta Jadhav |Pranay Tripathi

Rina Das Baul grew up seeing her father struggle while making a living as a baul singer. Though her grandfather and father were well-known baul singers in the region, Rina, a school dropout from Paruldanga village in Birbhum district of West Bengal, never wanted to even marry one, let alone practise the art herself. Little did she know then that the vocation would bring her widespread acclaim.mRina, one of the inspiring rural women, was 13 when her father chose a baul singer groom for her.

Oct 13, 2023 | villagesquare.in | Mariaelena Figueredo |Shveta Jadhav |Pranay Tripathi |Ashwini Shukla

There are a lot of aspects in which school education in urban areas is different from that in villages. For one, city schools have regular parent-teacher meetings held to help the guardians know what’s happening in the institution and how each young one is faring in studies. But in rural areas parents are not involved much in their children’s education. This gap is being bridged to some extent through the vidyalay prabandh samiti or school management committee (SMC) mechanism.