A story of a very brave 9 year old girl who has put grown-ups to shame

Its so easy to click like on facebook. Or drop a comment, gosh, I wish I could do this. I have been guilty of this. But then you come across people who actually make a difference. And when its a 9 year old girl, then you really feel bad about it all. 

This is a story of a 9 year old girl called as Muskaan. I quote from this story which was sent to me by my friend.

http://www.thebetterindia.com/48885/children-library-in-bhopal/

All the books that have been provided by the Rajya Siksha Kendra are laid out on a mat, while other children residing in the slum eagerly wait for their turn to pick up one of them.
In December 2015, a team of the State Education Board visited the slum and gave the children about 25 books to share and read with the aim of creating an interest for reading among them. They also conducted a question-answer round to understand the academic level of the children and Muskaan, a student of Class 3, won the quiz. The officials were very impressed by her knowledge and zeal to learn more. And that is how they gave her the responsibility to educate other students in the area with the help of books provided by the centre. The children then received more books on Republic Day.
Muskaan, who is a one of the most intelligent children in her class, maintains a register to keep a track of the books taken by other children and when they have to be returned. Her elder sister Neha, who is a student of Class 7, helps her in this process.
“Currently, the officials have provided 119 books to the library, which is my responsibility and I love doing this. Other children in slum area take books and return them the other day. Some stay back to read here with me and ask questions where they don’t understand,” she told The Times of India.
This way, the slum children have found a place to play, listen to stories, learn, and read together. Muskaan also conducts reading and discussion sessions where she reads a book aloud, and then they discuss it. They are now planning to ask for more books because most children have read all the books in stock. Muskaan’s father Manohar Ahirwar is a carpenter and her mother Maya is a housewife. They are proud of their daughters and said that both of them are very dedicated to their studies.

Impressive, eh? So I asked Ma to see if we can help her out in any way. Ma went there day before yesterday and met her. They live in the slums, its a desperately poor place and the classes and reading happens in a dark dingy room.  They have problems to keep the books safe so Ma and I decided to donate a nice little steel cupboard with glass doors to them for them to keep the books safe from damp, insects and damage.

She is such a brave girl. 9 years old. I am seriously impressed by her motivation and dedication, there are not that many adults who can say that they have made a difference to 5 people forget about 9 year olds. Very impressed.

Here are some of the photographs which Ma clicked.

here's the brave girl herself

with a book in her room

with her family

they live in a mud hut, even though they have some modcons like a tv and gas cooker, this isnt what you would expect a little girl to grow up in

some of the books in the library

another lady comes to teach some of the other slum kids some english. 

here's the signboard

Photo Essay of a launch of a book on a global disease that man conquered

Smallpox was one of the deadliest diseases known to man. The reason I said “was” is that this disease has been conquered. Perhaps uniquely, this is the only infectious disease which actually has been conquered and killed totally. There are no smallpox germs anywhere in the world, except for in some laboratories. This disease has killed billions of humans down history, half a billion in just the last century itself. I like this story, the idea that a global problem has been resolved by human ingenuity, technology, global coordination, use of education, vaccination, and so on and so forth. Whenever I find that there is a global problem of poverty, climate change, lack of clean water or what have you, I just think about smallpox and how humankind overcame it and my enthusiasm and motivation come flooding back.

So when I read that a book on the history of smallpox based upon primary original research is going to be released, I picked up my camera and took off to the Wellcome Trust to hear the man himself. Not going to give much away other than to say that the book is pretty good for a non-fiction book, it provides a great view on the various doctors who checked out the disease. It reviews diaries, it talks about the rich and poor who died a gruesome death, it talks about how the anti vaccininists worked (there are still men who do not believe in vaccines in this day and age!), etc. Strongly recommended.

But as I said, I took the liberty to take some photographs of the book launch. So this is not a book review as such (although I have talked about it above), but is more a photo essay on the book launch at the Wellcome Trust. It was also a charity event as all proceeds of the book go to a charity.

When you come to the Wellcome Trust building, what you see outside is this torch with two snakes entwined. You might wonder where this is coming from. Well, the Wellcome Trust is a medical charity and snakes form part of the staff of Asclepius, the Greek God of Medicine. Although the fact that it has two snakes means that its a bit confusing as that is a staff of Caduceus.

A view of Euston Road from inside the building.

Lovely hanging lamps in the vestibule.

And a great little quote on a poster. Anyway, be that as it may, this building holds a library, offices of the charity, archives and other bits and bobs.

It also contains a small exhibition in the ground floor, a cafe and a bookstore.

The Book Store

 
 
 

 
 
 

 

First you have a set of photographs of pretty much standard gift stuff you find in a bookstore, notebooks, cups, skeletons (ha!) etc.

The Books

Then you have the books. Its a scientist oriented / non fiction library, dont come looking around for mills and boon here.

Brilliant bag, eh? sounds about right to me :)

Books on London

Book summaries. Horrible.

 

There is an exhibition on skin and these displays related to skin, tattooing, etc.  But we weren't here for these books, we were here for the book launch of the book on smallpox.

The Book Launch

Here’s the book, nicely arranged.

They had small tables with olives and crisps discreetly arranged, I therefore discreetly arranged myself next to a convenient refreshment table and gobbled up some of these lovely little nibbles.



The great and good of British medical intelligentsia were here.

 
 

This gentleman is somebody great and good at the Wellcome Trust.

Then the publisher came on.

And then the author spoke for about 10 minutes, explained the amazing journey behind the eradication of smallpox, how luddites were against the vaccination campaign and thanked a very large number of people who had helped to make the book a reality.

Then he was going around signing the books and at one time, he was kneeling down to sign more. Lovely chap. So I turned around and decided to take off back home but took some photographs of two exhibits that were in the reception.

The exhibition.

This was an extraordinary sculpture and positioning. And peek as I might, I could not see what it related to or who the artist was or what have you. Very interesting placement, eh? But the second sculpture by Silvia Petretti, which was made in wax mixed with one day’s dose of the chemicals in an Anti HIV medication.

This sculpture spoke to me, the tension in the body, the way the woman is lying, the stark glass box and floor. All makes it into a very poignant sculpture. Much more resources are being poured into the Anti AIDS fight compared to the smallpox fight, but mankind is slowly but surely winning the fight against AIDS as well. Gives me hope for the future. And here is the slideshow with more photographs.