The Blossom Bus: Help Rural Girls Get To School!

Mausmin is a pretty lucky 14 year-old. She rides a bus every day to eighth grade, where she ranks 5^th in her class of 40 students. “I don’t find it too difficult, especially since my brother, who is in year 9, helps me,” she says.

One of three children, Mausmin’s family is notably smaller than Mewat district’s average family size of eight. Her mother, Jubeda, lost three children in labor, a tragedy that is all too common in Mewat. Perhaps because they have less mouths to feed and bodies to clothe, Mausmin's parents are supportive of the children’s formal learning for the long term. “We will educate the boys as long as they wish to remain in school,” says Jubeda. “And Mausmin as long as she is safe.”

By “safe” Jubeda means on a bus. Mausmin’s school actually gave bicycles to children who lived several kilometers away, but this simply isn’t good enough for girls - there are empty fields and isolated outhouses on the path. “We cannot possibly ride to school on a cycle alone, even if it is less than 3 kilometers,” says Mausmin.

“We heard that a girl from a nearby village going to school on her bike was surrounded by a group of boys,” recounts Mausmin. “She only escaped because some villagers helped her. There’s no way my parents, or any others for that matter, agree to girls going to school by bicycle.”

Mausmin herself, in fact, didn’t expect to attend eighth grade. At the beginning of the school year, she was at home helping with chores. She had heard of the Blossom Bus and asked to be chosen, but had heard nothing back. Finally, after two weeks as a dropout, she got the news that the Bus was coming to her village.

“I was very happy to know that I could take the Blossom Bus,” she says. “Four of my girl cousins dropped out last year, and while I encourage them to go back there is little chance without a bus to take them,” laments Mausmin. “But I want to finish grade 12, and I feel that my fate will lead me to a good job.”

“Education is everything,” says Jubeda. “It’s the only way to get employment, become independent and teach girls to think for themselves.”

Mausmin, Jubeda and all of us at Lotus Outreach thank you, the Blossom Bus donors, for making sure this young woman, and dozens of others like her, have a chance to be the first in their villages to finish high school.

Links:

• Photos from our BB visit during the Girl Effect Challenge
• Anjum's manifesto

You won the first ever Girl Effect Challenge for our Blossom Bus riders! In the month from October 15 to November 15, 574 unique donations were made to this project - pushing us into sixth place and across the finish line with five other finalists! Thanks to you, the Blossom Bus will be featured on the Girl Effect Fund’s project page for a full year, earning Lotus Outreach an incredible new partnership and unprecedented exposure.

You responded immediately with donations (each of which counted as a vote) when we told you about this contest last month, quickly propelling us into first place. However, since each donor can only “vote” once, things looked precarious when the Blossom Bus fell out of the top six in the final week. But we asked you to rally, and you got your friends and family to donate as well. We know for a fact that the personal appeals you made on our behalf were instrumental in the success of this campaign; we edged out the competition by a mere 53 votes!

What’s more, you donated generously. The Blossom Bus raised more money during the Challenge than any other project - $29,562. That’s enough to run 16 buses for an entire academic year.  With each bus making multiple trips each morning, we can now help hundreds of young women in Mewat, India finish high school and delay arranged marriages.

In addition to the incredible boon this contest has been for these dedicated girls and their families, we can’t thank you enough for the opportunity this has given us as an organization. The Girl Effect has become a powerful force in the philanthropic community; their video has been viewed more than three million times on YouTube, their Facebook page has 270,000 “likes” and the Girl Effect Fund has raised more than $700,000 from nearly 11,000 donors on GlobalGiving alone.

And now, it’s official: Lotus Outreach and the Blossom Bus ARE the Girl Effect.

We have a lot to be grateful for this Thanksgiving. On behalf of the Blossom Bus riders, our beneficiaries in India and Cambodia, and all of us here at Lotus Outreach, thank you.

We look forward to keeping you up-to-date on the continued success of this program through regular project reports, but we also encourage you to subscribe to our monthly newsletter by clicking here. 

Links:

• Girl Effect Challenge: Final Results