11-year-old tribal girl conducts free classes for young students during COVID-19

Eleven-year-old tribal girl Dipika Minz has been conducting free classes to support her juniors with their school work to ensure they do not fall behind.

The Class 7 student has taken up this task to help small children at a private school in Chandapara village in Khutni to keep their learning ongoing during the lockdown. 

According to The New Indian Express, Dipika also took this initiative to the next level by inspiring the Gram Sabha to conduct classes for seniors students as well.

These classes are divided into various batches based on age groups and, at present, has above 100 students attending them. 

Dipika teaches English and Maths to the juniors and also attends her own classes conducted by other volunteers in the village. 

“Whenever I used to see children playing around my house, I wondered that if I am forgetting what I learned in my school, the other small children must be forgetting their lessons as they hardly attended their school for a year or so. Therefore, I asked them some questions, and they could not answer properly. Then, I started teaching two students — one was in prep, and the other one was in Class 2, at the courtyard in the beginning just to revise the things, which I learned earlier in my school,” said Dipika to TNIE. 

As other parents in the village got to know about these classes, they too, started sending their children to attend these classes.

“As the number of children increased further, one of my friends Tannu Sneha Lakra also joined me for support. I also shifted my class to a platform built around the tree built by the Gram Sabha,” Dipika added.

What started with Dipika has now encouraged many more children and young adults to come forward and lend a helping hand in continuing the process of learning even during these difficult times.

They not only teach them but also provide them with study materials. 

“I am really proud of my daughter that she has brought a ray of hope among the parents during the time of crisis when everyone has become hopeless. Being a backward area, online classes are not feasible here, but through the initiative taken by Dipika, children have started getting back to the learning process,” Dipika’s father, Alok Minz told TNIE. 

(Written by Vrinda Garg)

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