Sudents of Prerna Residential School for Mahadalit Girls study in class and after hours in their classroom.
Read more about the extraordinary schools that give India's Dalit girls a chance at a better life by clicking here.
Stephanie Nolen will be heading back to Sister Sudha Varghese's school for girls in Patna, Bihar to check in on Poonam, Jyoti and Lakshmi from our ' Breaking Caste' series. Do you have any questions you would like her to ask the girls? What do you want to know about them or see from their stories? Tweet us your questions using the hashtag #breakingcaste or submit them here. Click here to read and watch the series so far.
UPDATE: Many readers are asking how they can help Sister Sudha and the girls. For information on how to make a donation, email Stephanie Nolen at snolen@globeandmail.com. For more information about the school, visit http://www.narigunjan.org, the official website of Nari Gunjan, the charity founded by Sister Sudha, that operates the school.
Reader questions from earlier comments and discussions:
- Did the girls talk about marriage at all? Arti from our discussion.
- The video interviews with the girls is significant because you can see the hope in their eyes; oftentimes these children have a dull almost not present look. But the question of then what happens because they are out of the "where they fit in"? Can they get a job? can they choose to not marry? LunaMoon from our discussion.
- Does anyone have any experiences with caste in Canada? How do new Canadians react to castes in the new country? Do the lower castes or Dalits experience discrimination in Canada from other new immigrants? Susan Wells in our comments.
- Thank you for trying to explain a hugely complex subject.They really are up against a huge mountain as always and Sudha and her ilke are wonderful to take it on. I lived in Bombay for a few years and constantly came across such roadblocks as you mentioned.Uneducated parents were pulling their kids(girls in particular ) out of school so they might "fit in" to the societyback in the village. It would be great to know how this story progresses. Laila from our discussion.