TULASI MUNDA
SOCIAL WORKER
An Adivasi by birth, deprived of education, this girl was forced to work in the mines just for 2 rupees a week, achieved the daunting goal educating over 20,000 tribal children within 50 years. This is not a farfetched fairy tale, but a story of a legend. Born in the year of India’s independence (1947), she had a different notion of freedom and independence. While other girls of her age tended goats in the fields and worked in the mines she dared to resolve to study.
At the time, when the education of a girl child, that too in the tribal and mining areas, was least considered, this lone woman with a fire for education and will power brought a revolution by educating the kids and thus greatly fought child labour. She is Tulasi Munda, popularly known as Tulasi Apa of Keonjhar District.
Tulsi, as a girl of 12 while working in mines, never gave up hope, rather her thirst to learn increased day by day, and during 1961 brought her in proximity to great women like Malti Chaudhary, Rama Devi, who were her idols. Then she became absorbed in starting and running a small school in her verandah, and the journey gradually went on to establish 17 schools, educating over 20,000 boys and girls.She strived to make education the children’s primary goal over working in fields and mines for meagre gains. She founded the Adivasi Vikas Samiti School providing education up to the 10th standard and enrolling over 500 students, over half of whom were girls.
For her sheer determination in eradicating illiteracy she was bestowed with the Odisha Living Legend Award for excellence in Social Service and the Padma Shri Award by the Government of India.
Here is a small token of honour to a lesser-known gem, featuring her in VARINDIA’s Crown Jewels of Odisha campaign.
