Amit is a social activist and farmer from Obrail village in Gaya, Bihar. It was his engagement with PACS (Poorest Areas Civil Society) that introduced him to Video Volunteers.  Amit works for rural, disenfranchised communities, and has covered issues of caste, education, land rights and water in his district, otherwise world-famous as a pilgrim and tourist destination. “Since I had…

Amit Kumar

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The nearest well to the Upper Middle School of Kailashpur is in the neighbouring village of Indrapatti. Students must walk there — miles away — in order to get drinkable water since the school doesn't have a hand-pump.Community correspondent Amit Kumar reports from Bihar’s Gaya district on the deplorable state of affairs.

Once at Indrapatti, the students face the ordeal of drawing water from a well that seems on the verge of collapse at any given moment. Water for sanitation purposes and cooking is also brought back from Indrapatti, and it is often the students who shoulder this responsibility.

In addition to this, the school's 200 students are handled by just 5 teachers — a clear violation of RTE's prescribed student-teacher ratio of 30:1. The Headmaster of the school says that he has been asking for assistance to solve these issues since 2003 but no help has been forthcoming thus far, despite visiting MLAs repeated assurances to help the school achieve compliance with RTE provisions.

CALL TO ACTION: Call the Block Education Officer of Belaganj Block, on +91-9199141546, and bring these issues to light in order to ensure that the necessary steps are taken.

About the Partnership: The Poorest Areas Civil Society (PACS) Programme and Video Volunteers have come together to create the Community Correspondents Network. The videos generated by the network will be able to highlight voices from the margins, providing skills to social communicators to provide advocacy tools to community based organisations.