At 17, Anita Kushwaha is a businesswoman. And a very successful one at that.
From a very low station, the intrepid girl, who rebelled against her family, which wanted her to marry and settle down and the immediate society which dubbed her a mental case, Anita has risen to almost legendary fame and sparked off a mini economic revolution in areas around Muzaffarpur.
Her courage in the face of immense pressure so impressed people that the UNICEF has now adopted her as its new poster-girl. She is actually the youngest among the three selected from all over India as shining examples of people who countered gender bias and carved a special niche in life for themselves.
Anita remembers the day when she was in class IX and had wanted to study further but her parents had said no. They wanted her to marry. But the little girl had resisted them and started giving tuitions to make some money on her own.
She had watched people rear bees and the trucks collect the boxes each day in the morning and drop them back in the evening. She decided to buy a box with a queen bee with the Rs 2,500 she had saved from her tuitions. The boxes started yielding honey and her mother, impressed by the process, helped her buy a second one.
The raw honey fetched her Rs 40 to 45 per kg. They saved the money and bought more boxes. Today, the proud family has 100 boxes and manages to save Rs 1 lakh a year.
Rekha Devi, her mother, and Janardan Singh, her father, had never imagined that their life would change so radically. They help her now with the work while their example has created so much interest that the Dalit village of Patatiyasa, just one and a half kilometres from Bocchaha block has turned into a beehive of activity.
"They used to make fun of me," recalls Anita speaking of her co-villagers. "They do not any more". Today, Anita has been able to realise her dream to study in a college.
She is now a proud student of the Mahant Darshan Das Mahila Mahavidyalaya in Muzaffarpur to which she cycles 14 kms each day. What is more, she could buy her younger brother, just one year younger than her, a motorcycle and is confident that she can help him study further. But what does she want to be ten years from now?
"I want to be a social activist who can inspire girls to do similar things and help them study", she says shyly. Today, this young courageous girl of a decrepit village has shown that where there is the will, there always will be a way.
From a very low station, the intrepid girl, who rebelled against her family, which wanted her to marry and settle down and the immediate society which dubbed her a mental case, Anita has risen to almost legendary fame and sparked off a mini economic revolution in areas around Muzaffarpur.
Her courage in the face of immense pressure so impressed people that the UNICEF has now adopted her as its new poster-girl. She is actually the youngest among the three selected from all over India as shining examples of people who countered gender bias and carved a special niche in life for themselves.
Anita remembers the day when she was in class IX and had wanted to study further but her parents had said no. They wanted her to marry. But the little girl had resisted them and started giving tuitions to make some money on her own.
She had watched people rear bees and the trucks collect the boxes each day in the morning and drop them back in the evening. She decided to buy a box with a queen bee with the Rs 2,500 she had saved from her tuitions. The boxes started yielding honey and her mother, impressed by the process, helped her buy a second one.
The raw honey fetched her Rs 40 to 45 per kg. They saved the money and bought more boxes. Today, the proud family has 100 boxes and manages to save Rs 1 lakh a year.
Rekha Devi, her mother, and Janardan Singh, her father, had never imagined that their life would change so radically. They help her now with the work while their example has created so much interest that the Dalit village of Patatiyasa, just one and a half kilometres from Bocchaha block has turned into a beehive of activity.
"They used to make fun of me," recalls Anita speaking of her co-villagers. "They do not any more". Today, Anita has been able to realise her dream to study in a college.
She is now a proud student of the Mahant Darshan Das Mahila Mahavidyalaya in Muzaffarpur to which she cycles 14 kms each day. What is more, she could buy her younger brother, just one year younger than her, a motorcycle and is confident that she can help him study further. But what does she want to be ten years from now?
"I want to be a social activist who can inspire girls to do similar things and help them study", she says shyly. Today, this young courageous girl of a decrepit village has shown that where there is the will, there always will be a way.
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