Keshkali has been the president of the School Management Committee (SMC) in the Composite School, Kandohara, since July 2011. Since then, looking into her work and activeness, parents elect her in all new terms of SMC. When she became president, she found that there were only two classrooms in the school and only one teacher was appointed, but a large number of children were enrolled. She raised the issue of teachers and classrooms, as a result of which two new classrooms, a library, and a gallery were constructed in the school, and two new teachers got appointed. She holds the meeting of SMC every month in which she thoroughly reviews the work that happened in the school and progress on RTE norms and standards. She shares that, earlier, only 5-6 Dalit children were enrolled in the school where hardly any girls were enrolled in the school. But she started raising awareness among parents, engaged other SMC members, and encouraged the enrolment of Dalit children. At present, 56 children are enrolled in the school. More than 95% of the children among the enrolled children are from the Dalit community of her panchayat.
Last year, she started doing community-based monitoring of schools. They found that, in the premise of school, the area that was allotted for the playground was forcefully occupied by a feudal person who was doing agriculture in the field. Keshkali and other SMC members raised the issue to the Block Development Officer (BDO), who took action on this and did a measurement of the area in the month of June, 2024. In front of other parents and police officers, Lekhpal did a measurement of the land, and with the stern action, the occupied land was evicted. Now a boundary wall has been constructed in the school. This provided security to children in the school. The SMC got resources in their account, and in the meeting, members found that there is a need to install a submersible and get an electricity connection for their school, and they took the collective decision to get this done. An application was given to Basic Shiksha Adhikari, and work got done.
In one meeting, they found that among three cooks appointed for preparation of mid-day meal (MDM) in the school were from the Scheduled Caste (SC) community and were fired. In place of these, all three cooks were appointed from the dominant caste. SMC members raised objections against this, as a result of which one cook for SC and one from OBC got appointed.
Girls of the upper primary section should get free sanitary pads in the school, but in the school, girls were not getting this. Keshkali raised this issue at the block level in Naraini, where a government official shared that this should be done, but no one takes action on this. Keshkali took the positive step, brought sanitary pad blocks to the office, and kept them at the Nyaya Panchayat Resource Center (NPRC), Jabrapur, through which they got distributed in the school. Now sanitary pads have started being distributed in many schools as a result of this.
Keshkali says, ‘Due to lack of money, I could not complete my education. Being from a poor Dalit family, getting education was a dream for me, but the resource crisis at the family level became a big challenge for me. My father was the sole earning member in my family who had to take responsibility for my parents, five brothers, and two sisters, including me. Somehow, I could get an education till class eight. I got married at an early age of 16 years, and that was the end of my education career. One day, I met with Prabhat Samiti and started serving the organization as a volunteer. In my work as well, I had to overcome taunts of my family members and villagers while going out. My husband and colleague of Prabhat Samit were my supporting hands who helped me in dealing with all obstacles I came across. Gradually I completed my education till class 12th from Bundelkhand University. Looking into my activeness, I was elected as president of the School Management Committee (SMC). For the past five years, parents and teachers have shown trust in me and appreciated my hard work for the community and children by re-electing me continuously as the president of SMC. I could not get my dream of getting an education fulfilled, but my heart beats for the education of children. I will support children and teachers in improving the quality and infrastructural parameters of schools in my Panchayat so that no Dalit child should be left behind from education.’
Prabhat Samiti is working for the inclusion of Dalit children in mainstream education in 52 schools and 35 anganwadis of five districts in Uttar Pradesh. The organization has formed a collective of women named ‘Savitri Bai Phule Mahila Sangathan,’ which tracks effective functioning of panchayat, service delivery, and inclusion of Dalit communities. The collective strives on the issues of communities, inclusion, discrimination, and atrocities against Dalit communities.