I am Kanchan Ahirwar. I am seventeen year old. I am in 10th class. I have two sisters and a brother along with parents at our home. My parents go to nearby cities to work as labourers there. We stay at our place.
Earlier I was too shy to speak. I felt women must not speak up. Every time I used to leave home for some work I preferred to avoid people and just focussed on my task getting accomplished.
When I joined Balika Panchayat of Grameen Swalamban Samiti I gradually came to know about the world. Today I am not afraid to speak even in public.
Whenever I feel there is some injustice, I oppose that. GSS helps in getting poor girls educated in our village. It helps in getting tuition fees and seeking admission in schools. In my village there were 5 girls who were too poor to continue school education. So we approached a female workers of GSS after that it helped in paying school fees but the teacher refused to give us receipt of the fees. The receipt of the fees had to be submitted to GSS. Our request for issuing the receipt got rejected by the teacher several times.
I spoke about this in Balika Panchayat and went straight to the school teacher and sought receipt on his face. He was taken aback seeing my confidence and issued the receipt of the five girls on the same day. I submitted those to GSS.
I firmly believe that whenever you come across any discrimination then oppose it so that no one near us can discriminate against someone else. I believe that girls should leave the habit of remaining silent and start speaking up against discrimination. Only then we can see social change.
Kanchan
Village- Ajnaur. Block- Tikamgarh. District- Tikamgarh