Sujata Tarte used to walk for an hour every day to get to school at Nimbgaon Bhogi village, in Shirur, Maharashtra. “Now it takes only half an hour,” says the class IX student, who can continue her studies even as she helps out with the household chores. Sheetal Vyavahre too has decided to pursue a diploma in agriculture instead of dropping out of school, and though Vijaya Sambhare cycles 13 km to Shirur, she is not complaining because she hopes to complete her BEd some day.

The common thread that binds the lives and aspirations of most girls in the Shirur taluka is the bicycle. It’s their vehicle to freedom in more ways than one. The Bicycle Bank is the brainchild of Ashta No Kai (ANK), an NGO that works for girls’ literacy in 10 villages of Shirur. “We take Rs 300 as deposit from the girls when we give them the bicycle, and the money is used for the bike’s maintenance. They keep the cycles till they continue their education, and after they return them, we give back the deposit or the balance,” says Armene Modi, founder chairperson of ANK.

Till a few years ago, the girls around Shirur studied till class VIII and got married. “We were told that without a good dowry, we wouldn’t find a good match,” says Vaishali Sambare, a class IX student. Today they know that good education is the only passport to a good life—and the bicycles are getting them there. Things began to change after Modi, on a visit to the area in 1998, found extremely low literacy levels, with only a couple of girls getting into college. “In fact, they dropped out of school after class VIII,” says Modi. Today, there are 11 girls from Nimbgaon Bhogi and two from Sone Sangvi who cycle their way to college.

... contd.