2 River Crossings, 1 Dream: Maharashtra Children's 10-Km Journey To School

For the children in a village surrounded by hills in Maharashtra, a tryst with education means a 10-kilometre walk to their school. Not just that, they even have to cross a river on their way to the school.

Around forty students from the village and some children from anganwadis (rural child care centres) in the Nandurbar district are making this risky trip every day.

In a video, the children, some of them barefoot, with bags on their shoulders, were seen crossing a bridge over one of the rivers. Due to the absence of a permanent bridge over the Warkhedi river, a makeshift bridge has been constructed by the locals with bamboo and rope.

However, after crossing this bridge, the children then need to cross the other side of the river by wading through water. They hold onto each other and cross the gushing river. In the video, a child was seen slipping while crossing the river

The locals have been demanding that the administration provide basic facilities, like roads, to the village so that at least the children can easily reach their school.

This is not the story of only this village. Children in the Walda village of Maharashtra's Palghar also have to make a strenuous journey to school.

The dangerous two-kilometre trek to school involves children holding each other's hands, walking on the dam built on the Rakhadi river, and crossing the fast-flowing water to reach school since there's no bridge to cross the river - A demand ignored for years.