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Education access · INDIA

Garima

Founder of Sakshar Pathshala, which connects children in slum settlements with education — credited in award coverage with connecting over 1,000 students; received the PMRBP 2024 (Social Service) as Haryana’s only recipient.

Reported 9 in January 2024 (official award material)

Haryana · India

Garima, holding a white cane and her Bal Puraskar tote bag, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi
Garima with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Bal Puraskar awardees’ meeting, holding her award tote and white cane
Image source ↗ · Punjab Kesari
Source photograph · credit and provenance below

BEHIND THE RESULT

The achievement

Garima is nine years old and lives in Navdi village in Mahendragarh district, Haryana. On 22 January 2024 she received the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar, India’s national honour for children, in the Social Service category — one of 19 children honoured by President Droupadi Murmu at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi, and the only one from Haryana that year.

Sakshar Pathshala

The award recognised her initiative, Sakshar Pathshala. Through it, Garima goes to children living in slum settlements — and to their parents — and talks to them about why education matters and how it can change a life. Award coverage credits Sakshar Pathshala with connecting over 1,000 students to education. Garima is visually impaired — the government’s own award material says so — and she has faced difficulties in her own early schooling. Hindi press reports describe her as a Class 4 student whose father is a teacher, and say she wants to become a teacher herself one day. Her message, as the reports record it, is simple: education is every child’s fundamental right.

A spark to explore

If you wanted to convince one child in your neighbourhood to come to school every day, what would you say to them — and to their parents? That is a question from us, not part of her record.

Source-based story · the activities are prompts for readers.

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The achievement, in context.

Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar

Founder of Sakshar Pathshala, which connects children in slum settlements with education — credited in award coverage with connecting over 1,000 students; received the PMRBP 2024 (Social Service) as Haryana’s only recipient.

2024-01-22 · Supporting source ↗

Sources you can explore.

Drishti IAS · Haryana current affairs, 7 February 2024 ↗Current-affairs report

Hindustan Times · January 2024 ↗News report

Original source ↗

Another spark to discover.

More in this field →
Jyotsna Aktar receiving the Bal Puraskar citation scroll from President Droupadi Murmu, with Minister Smriti Irani beside themChild-marriage prevention

Tripura · India

Jyotsna Aktar

Stopped her own child marriage as a Class 9 student (teachers and Child Line intervened), then became convener of the Amjad Nagar school Balika Manch campaigning against child marriage; received the PMRBP 2024 (Social Service) aged 16.

16 in January 2024 (PTI; Tripura Star News)

Read the story →

Tripura Star News ↗Source photograph · see credit