2 August 2009

NEW DELHI: The kitchen collapsed, rooms were flooded, snakes swam around and animals she'd never seen before floated past. But Aarti Kumari, 12, of Saharsa, Bihar, was still lucky. By the time water levels fell, she still had her home, unlike over 3 lakh others in the area.

Being relatively well off —her father owns a utensil store in Purnia — and drier than others meant that Aarti was in a position to help. Moreover, she was the mukhiya of her village's bal panchayat, one of nearly 100 kids in the 6-14 age-group who were members of children's panchayats across Saharsa. They made the first tentative efforts at organizing relief for flood victims last September. Bablu Kumar Choudhary, 13, mukhiya of the children's panchayat at Bariyahi village, Saharsa, was part of that group also. Each Bal Panchayat, established with an NGO support, has 10 kids.

In the past 10 months, they have been helping their respective villages get back on track and grow. They got their schools expanded, their grounds developed, encouraged other kids, especially girls, to go to school.

Villages, with panchayats like the ones Aarti and Bablu belong to, were in the middle of change when the floods caught them. Bablu's school, consisting of one hall where over 80 students studied together, had its expansion plans approved with Bablu's efforts, who, as he puts it, "pade likhe aur tez bane," to become mukhiya. He had lobbied hard for separate rooms for the eight classes, toilets and kitchen. Aarti's village wanted a middle-school and for it to be housed in a new building. The floods stalled all work but also gave these young leaders an opportunity to prove themselves.

"We told them, 'this is the time to show what you can do'," says Jitender Prasad Chaurasia, a Bachpan Bachao Andolan activist at Saharsa. Clothes and food were collected from the less affected areas and redistributed. They organized milk and biscuits for children and gave away their own old school books. They also arranged for medicines. If children were abandoned or sold, Bablu and Aarti don't know about it or don't want to admit it. "Nahin, aisa nahin hua," says Bablu.

But post-flood, change has been rapid. The school, whose expansion Bablu had worked for, was completed in February, 2009. "It is double-storied with more than 200 students, including girls," Bablu says proudly. Aarti's efforts haven't ceased either. One primary school has been extended to Class VIII. Construction of a new school building is to begin. Soon there will be a flood of change in these parts of Bihar.

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