Rani: One of 50 Million
Fifty million girls of school age in the world are not in school. One of them went an internet cafe, which are widely available in the developing world, began a search, and found Compassion Beyond Borders' web site. “I am not wants to stop my study. I need $400 for college fees, books, meterials, so I request you please do financial support my further studies” she wrote to CBB. "I am just a common girl, but I have a thirst for education." She is Rani from India.
Compassion Beyond Borders gave Rani a scholarship to attend the junior college shown here. Rani’s father earns $1.15 a day as a day laborer, when work is available, with which he supports a family of four. Rani too worked in the fields to earn money to buy her high school books, and her mother also works during the peak agricultural season.
Rani begins her day at dawn by making a floral welcoming design on the ground outside the front door to her family's three room rental house--one of the many rich cultural traditions of India. Rani quickly lays out a grid with dots of powdered chalk and then draws in the curved connecting lines.
In less than ten minutes the design is completed. A welcoming design is made every morning, and is slowly erased during the day as visitors come and go. Tomorrow will bring a fresh, different design.
“I would like to become a teacher. My ambition is to give education to people who are suffering from poverty like me,” Rani wrote to Compassion Beyond Borders. Rani would like to teach Hindi, the most common language of India, but not the language where she lives.
Rani’s scholarship enabled her to resume her study of Hindi, which had been interrupted for lack of money. After she passes one more Hindi examination she will be qualified to begin teacher training to teach Hindi in a public school.
During her academic break Rani studies computers and English, also funded by CBB. She is a diligent student, taking her studies very seriously. Educational achievement is the path out of the poverty she has lived in all her life.
Rani’s mother prepares the noon meal. There is no kitchen table, so she cooks from the floor. The family eats one full meal a day--rice with curry. Breakfast and supper are usually rice only, but sometimes also curd or bread. Rice is inexpensive for a poor family, about two cents a pound at the government ration shops. It is white rice, not whole grain.
Rani’s family gets enough calories, but little of the nutrition that they need for good health. As a result, they are frequently sick, often with potentially serious diseases. When Rani’s father is home ill, there is no income for the family that day--and nothing to eat but rice. Medicines are not expensive in India, but the family has little money with which to buy them.
Both Rani and her mother do embroidery, although Rani learned this skill in school, rather than from her mother. Her mother says Rani is better than she is. This work is an evening activity, as there is no television or radio. Rani first pencils in the design she wants to make, and then completes it with needle and thread.
With her foot-powered sewing machine, Rani’s mother makes clothes for herself, her two daughters and Rani’s female cousins. The girls and women all wear traditional clothing--Rani’s style of dress is typical for a girl of her age, and her mother's is typical for an adult woman.
Rani is blessed with a loving family--and she is a loving daughter. The family is as spiritually rich as it is materially poor. Early Sunday morning the young women in the house gather on the floor of the dining room for Bible study.
Rani’s family attends a Salvation Army church with a congregation of 35 people. She is also the connection to a small Christian orphanage where CBB sponsors the education of the 12 girls who live there. Rani teaches the orphans Sunday School, sends and receives the orphanage e-mails, and is the channel for transmitting funds to the orphan girls.
