From promoting adventure tourism in remote areas to providing free education, the top Social Stories this week

Inspiration is all around us; all we have to do is look around to find people who motivate and inspire.

This week, in SocialStory, we interacted with Julima Deka, a single mother who is running and encouraging adventure tourism in the remotest areas of Assam.

We also caught up with journalist Richa Anirudh, who started the Jamghat Pathshala to offer free education to the underprivileged. Today, over 140 underprivileged kids come there every day to study.

Here is the best of Social Story this week:

This single mother runs a successful adventure tourism business in one of India’s more remote locations

Julima Deka was only a small child when she was gifted her first book on Mount Everest. Opening it, she knew she was looking into her own future.

The stories of Tenzin Norgay and Edmund Hillary captivated her, and she knew she would one day follow in their footsteps. To the second of five daughters, born in a small conservative village in Assam, scaling mountains would have been an impossible dream; but, her father, Girindranath Deka, a soldier in the Indian Army, had very different ideas on how his girls would live.

“We had no brothers, so we were raised to do everything boys were expected to do in a village. I even helped with the running of the home,” says 38-year-old Julima.

Realising her love for adventure, her father taught her how to ride his Rajdoot bike. Driving around the foothills that surround her village Kerpabati, Julima says she felt a sense of freedom that she never thought possible.

From corridors of uncertainty to safe passages

Susan Morse of the US Fish and Wildlife Service wrote that “whether they run, swim or fly, wild animals need to move to complete their life cycles. We call their routes wildlife corridors. These can span anywhere from a stretch of river to a whole continent”. 

Essentially, it is an area used by wild animals to move from one place to another. A genetic study by the Wildlife Conservation Trust found that tigers move over 700 km in one generation, making the areas between the two distant forests critical for the species to survive.

Corridors are not just for large animals, but even small creatures from all taxa have their corridors, be it salmon or striped tiger, butterflies or frogs, that move across or within a landscape.

Thus, corridors are not necessarily patches of forests, they could range from stream beds, agricultural lands, wooded areas to even roads. It is about the function and the form.

Jamghat Pathshala provides free education to 200 students

In 2021, journalist Richa Anirudh started the Jamghat Pathshala with about eight students studying under a tree outside a temple. Today, it has more than 140 underprivileged kids who come there every day.

Every week from Monday to Saturday, these children sit in the shade of a tiny tree on a pavement outside a building in Sector 137, Noida, where Richa, a few volunteers, and two teachers teach them. The students get their notebooks and other stationery items from Richa. 

On what led to Jamghat Pathshala, Richa tells SocialStory, “One fine day I saw a few students sitting outside a temple. Upon asking I realised that these students are willing to study but due to lack of financial resources and right opportunity they are unable to get admission in a school.” And thus, the mini school began.

[Survivor Series] My service and commitment for the community matters

This week, we share the story of Kailash Chandra Bisoyi, the Headmaster at a small Primary School in a remote hilly area in Odisha, who has gone out of his way to serve the marginalised community and has become an inspiration for others.

"I am Kailash Chandra Bisoyi, a 56-year-old Headmaster (in charge) of the Patabandha Primary School located in the Bissam Cuttack block in Rayagada district of Odisha. I have been serving as an educator in this primary school since 2011.

After the closure of the school following the COVID-imposed lockdown in March 2020, I stopped visiting the Bissam village for four months. As the number of COVID-19 infections reduced, I started visiting the village and began giving his services like completion of assessment and promotion, providing certificates for transition to upper primary schools, distribution of books, uniform, ration and financial assistance in place of mid-day meal to the students in his community, which belonged to the Kondhs."