12-year old Nikita has a dream. She aspires to be a teacher when she grows up. Today Nikita, is an inspiration to all the children in her village. She now talks in English and her entire personality has changed. Not only her parents but the entire village takes pride in her.

Nikita belongs to a small village called Dagla ka Kheda and like all other children, she attended the government school till her 4^th grade. Little did she know that her dedication towards studies will bring her this far.

Hindustan Zinc under its Shiksha Sambal project, every year selects few such underprivileged children to appear for a written test post which, the selected students are provided with free education till 12^th, in the Hind Zinc School. In 2016, even Nikita appeared for the test along with 30 other children and got shortlisted for further education in Zinc School.

The Shiksha Sambal project aims at strengthening the learning of subjects – Science, English and Maths. This project is being implemented in 60 government schools located in communities around the company’s operations, across Ajmer, Bhilwara, Chittorgarh, Rajsamand and Udaipur districts of Rajasthan. Shiksha Sambal reaches out to over 7,000 rural & tribal students from classes 9^th to 12^th.

While Nikita is a student at Hind Zinc School, her mother, Jaswant Kunwar is a part of Hindustan Zinc’s Sakhi Self Help Groups – Radha Rani and Bholenath Samooh. She feels exhilarated to see her daughter teach the other children of her village.

Nikita’s father is a simple farmer in the village. She has two younger sisters; one is Riti, studying in the 4^th grade and a 1-year old younger sister, who is named after the parent company, Vedanta.

Jaswant says, “No other organization would have done this for my children. I am very grateful to Hindustan Zinc for bringing such a positive change in Nikita, something that I couldn’t have done by myself. Today my other daughter feels motivated looking at her elder sister. It is a great feeling”.

Along with Nikita, two more girls, Saroj and Reena Vaishnav from the village Pavtiyan, were selected.

With the help of this initiative, today’s Nikita will be tomorrow’s hope for many others like her, aspiring to learn and grow…