Dilnashin Alamgir is a name yet unknown to most … but her struggles for the cause of female education are not any less commendable than Malala’s. Learn the story of an extraordinary life. G Singh reports …
Dilnashin is a Persian word, when translated in English means something attractive or close to the heart. The Noble peace prize winner Malala Yousafzai might stay miles away from here, but the city of joy has its own Malala who too has touched and won several hearts through her painstaking efforts on child education, especially girls.
Meet Dilnashin Alamgir, the 18-year-old girl who lives in Kasai basti in Narkeldanga and recently travelled to the US to be felicitated at the UN Headquarters in New York.
Sitting in the office of Children International – Sahay, I chanced upon the nicely framed one-liners on the importance of education. Dilnashin comes inside wearing a broad smile on her face. After the initial formalities, she finally sits on a chair to narrate the story of her life from being a slum dweller to a winner.
“Tell me something about your background?” She smiles and answers, “I belong to a economically backward family where I grew up with my two siblings. My father works as a shoe box maker and doesn’t earn enough to arrange two square meals a day, let alone sending us to reputed schools for education. While living in such an ordeal, I realised the importance of education and the difference it can bring in our society by changing not only our lives, but also of our families,”
She came in contact with the non-profit organisation where she was trained on several social and other issues that brought a radical change in her mindset.
However, it was a herculean task for her to convince her parents and her locality who thought that their daughter had treaded into the wrong territory, “It was very difficult to convince them as people in our locality believed in early marriages of the girls and advocated purdah system. They were reluctant to send their children when I started free education in our slum,” she says
In May, she went to the US to collect an award for the best performer of a project on social and financial entrepreneurship. The award was given by Child and Youth Finance International (CYFI) followed by her felicitation by UNESCO in New York.
Things brightened once she returned from USA as her family changed their outlook and started appreciating her work. Dilnashin says that more than 7,000 children of Narkeldanga come to the non-profit organisationto learn different crafts, apart from getting educated. They are taught to make craft items by recycling the waste material. The finished products are then sold in the market, says Dilnashin adding that the income helps to meet their personal expenses.
Mousumi Gupta, the field officer of the non-profit organisation says, “Dilnashin has become a role model for the society where most of her colleagues have no alternative but to silently comply with the wishes of their families.”
Dilnashin’s future plans include reading the autobiography of her icon Malala Yousafzai..
