At just age 16, Anju Verma is using education as a tool to improve the social mobility of underprivileged children. Her own life story is a compelling narrative of the triumph of the spirit: her father is a truck driver, and her mother a housewife, and Anju was born in Daulatpur village in Haryana, a State with a skewed sex ratio, which encapsulates its regressive attitude towards women.

Undaunted, Anju took the fight for literacy to every household with the support of the village sarpanch. Educating herself first about the right to education, Anju convinced — and, at times, confronted — parents in her neighbourhood to send their children to school.

She personally intervened to rescue 46 children employed illegally, and ensured they were enrolled in school. Through ‘Buland Udaan’, the organisation that she founded, Anju has until now admitted/re-admitted over 300 students in schools and has thwarted five child marriages.

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