VidyaGyan, a rural leadership academy in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, is handpicking the most meritorious children from families with an annual income of less than Rs 1 lakh ($1800) per annum, and teaching them free-of-cost to bring them at par with their urban counterparts.
It is also one of the only academies to be successful in fulfilling international aspirations of rural children. Among many stories of success is that of Manvi's. She hails from a remote place called Bulandshahr in UP. Daughter of a daily wage earner and a VidyaGyan student, she secured admission in
Wellesley College with a full financial aid of US$75,000 annually for four years. Wellesley College is ranked No. 3 National Liberal Arts College in the US. Incidentally, Wellesley College is the alma mater of
Hillary Clinton.
Manvi was determined to carve out a path for herself and finish her education when most other girls from her village or the region dropped out of school in Grade 5 and were made to do odd jobs for contributing to family income. Since she joined VidyaGyan in Grade VI (VidyaGyan begins from class VI), Manvi has depicted exceptional grit and merit. She was the first student from
Bulandshahr VidyaGyan to win the Kennedy Lugar Youth Exchange and Study Scholarship to the USA in 2014. She travelled to Minnesota to complete Grade XI, acting as a global citizen, determined to bridge the cultural gap between students from different countries of the world. She studied for a year at the Edison High School in Minnesota. After she came back to India to complete Grade XII, she was invited as a speaker at the recently concluded Global Citizen India Festival representing the potential of Indian village girls as future leaders.
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UNDP country head and celebrities from Bollywood and spoke about her journey from a village to VidyaGyan and then Minnesota. Manvi aims to become a citizen of the world and represent her country and women from every developing nation across platforms which matter. She is not alone.
There are many such incredible achievements by VidyaGyan's second batch of students as they are moving to a distant land to chart paths their families and peers could have never imagined.
Here are six other students from VidyaGyan’s graduating batch of 2017 who have similar stories to tell: