In rural areas, due to lack of finance most children don’t even pass 2nd standard and start thinking of how to support themselves or their family. Education however has a lasting effect on your life.
Feeding someone may be great, even clothing, but these are short term help however educating someone can bring lots of confidence and vision. It also teaches them to earn their own living which helps them to feed and clothe themselves.
Educating someone is probably the most noble thing one can do. It needs the heart of a Hero!
This is the story of one such hero; Vimala Kaul!
Her story began at a small slum in Delhi (Chauhan Chaupal) where she was distributing biscuits to orphans and a casual comment by a passerby struck her and she decided that she needed to do something more than just meeting a temporary need, she wanted to give them a life, a life that mattered!
Vimala Kaul, 81, started off with teaching sewing classes at a small village in New Delhi named Madanpur Khadar in 1994. She started with 44 women, and today she teaches a group of over 110 men, women and children.
Her Journey
Why give fishes? Teach them to fish! Indeed a great thought and a similar statement caused her to take her first step into gathering 5 willing students and she conducted her very first class in 1995 in a public place of a village in Delhi. It was in MGD Park that she taught her students for 15 long years.
What could have inspired such a noble mind?
“When I first went to the village, I saw kids roaming around and wasting their time. So I gathered five students who were interested in learning and started my first class in 1995 at public place in the village,”. This is her inspiration. Hurting, needy people inspired her.
At the dawn of her dream, financial crash almost shut down her classes when The Malviya Trust ( An institution following the statutes of Pandit Madanmohan Malviya) offered a helping hand and today her efforts stand in the name of Guldasta . Yes, Guldasta which mean “bouquet of flowers”. It’s a 4 room flat where four teachers have been hired to teach approximately 120 students starting from LKG to class II.
“Education has the ability to give a new turn to life,” Mrs. Kaul added.
Is there anything worth inspiring you? Anything worth stirring you?
Vimala Kaul had limited finances, but she didn’t accept defeat. That’s the spirit of real heroes! She went from park to park teaching these little children. If one Park threw her out, she would go to the next.
Persistence was and continues to be her companion even though she now runs the race alone after the demise of her husband.