Meet The West Bengal Couple Who Declined PhD Offer From US To Stay & Help Underprivileged Kids

For Anirban Nandy and Poulomi Nandy giving up an offer to study post-doctorate in the United States of America was an easy decision to make.

They instead chose to stay back in India and help underprivileged children get better access to books and education.

The couple has created a mobile library that helps students stay in touch with the latest books as well as offers supplementary classes.

The mobile library travels to the hinterlands, slums, and every possible place where the lives of education-starved children could be transformed by introducing them to books and assisting them in their studies.

More than 6,400 children have benefitted from mobile libraries and are connected to "10 takar tuition", a Rs 10 tuition initiative, for the underprivileged. Of this figure, nearly 80 per cent of the students are girls.

Mobile Library | Anirban Nandy

But the couple is doing much more than offering free books to children.

Training women to grow mushrooms

Anirban, the co-founder of ¡°Live Life Happily¡±, and his wife Poulomi, are helping women residents of closed tea estates across the Siliguri subdivision and families who lost their principal earning members to elephant attacks, to mushroom hope amid hardship.

A rural development researcher from IIT-Kharagpur, Anirban, along with his wife regularly visit the tea estates to train women on growing mushrooms for sale.

"Currently, we are training around 8,000 tribal women of tea estates, including some from closed gardens, on how to grow mushrooms regularly and in large quantities," Anirban told Indiatimes.

And the number of women willing to learn is ever-increasing.

¡°Mushrooms have a huge demand in the hospitality industry nowadays. We are trying to develop market linkages so that women can sell the mushrooms they grow smoothly, not just in Calcutta but in the local markets of Siliguri and the hills. A kilo of mushroom fetches at least Rs 120,¡± he said.

Mobile Library | Anirban Nandy

The couple got this idea while they helping girls to study amid the pandemic outbreak in 2020. They interacted with their mothers working in the tea gardens and facing financial constraints.

The mother did not have enough money to continue paying for their daughters' education, and that's when the couple thought of training them in mushroom cultivation.

Since mushroom cultivation does not need much space, and these workers own no land, it was the safest option.

¡°Mushroom cultivation does not need much space. We have brought women together into self-help groups. Each group has 10 members who cultivate mushrooms in their own huts,¡± said Poulomi.

The SHGs send mushrooms to wholesale markets in Howrah and Burrabazar in Calcutta.

Providing menstrual hygiene products to girls

Anirban and Poulomi are also helping underprivileged girls have access to safe and clean menstrual hygiene products.

Mobile Library | Anirban Nandy

Villagers in the Siliguri and Jalpaiguri area, deprived of the normal standard of living and social rights, have found support from the couple who distribute sanitary pads as well as make them aware of the importance of hygiene.

The couple has set up a sanitary pad bank for the women who faced more difficulties during the pandemic. Anirban said that more than 19,000 sanitary pads have been given to girls and women so far.

Their initiatives are transforming the lives of thousands of children and women.

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