Bhubaneswar,20/2: Manya Kheria, a nineteen year old girl from Bhubaneswar, Odisha initiated Project Shiksha in December last year to remove hindrances to good quality education for the children in the rural areas. Due to the pandemic, thousands of rural schools across India have witnessed a sudden halt in education on grounds of lack of proper resources for virtual classes. Manya came up with a very creative and sustainable solution to help rural schools amidst the pandemic.
She made use of the available aangan spaces in the Jagatsinghpur district to set up projectors to teach children while following the social distancing norms. Over a hundred children from the schools of Nalinibala Girls’ High School and Uchhabananda U.P. School have benefitted from Manya’s initiative. In addition, she has also raised funds for renovating the toilets in these schools which were in an extremely dilapidated state. “I believe that all children deserve to get the opportunity to obtain a good quality education.
Through Project Shiksha, I aim to help many more schools improve their education infrastructure so that children across India can access good quality education and achieve their dreams,” Manya said. A student of the prestigious Georgetown University, Manya hopes to become an economic policy maker and create efficient models to tackle the persistent socio-economic problems prevalent in the society. Till now, Manya has raised over two lakh rupees to help the two schools. The teacher faculty at both schools are overjoyed and thankful for Project Shiksha’s noble initiative. “We have been able to conduct proper classes for the first time since the pandemic began in 2020.
The entire school is very grateful to Manya for her dedication, compassion, and commitment to help the students,” stated the headmistress of the Nalinibala Girls’ High School. Project Shiksha is in the process of raising more funds to help more schools across rural India. Through her project, Manya hopes to increase access to quality education for children across the country.