Who is Kailash Satyarthi ?

In the years that followed Kailash and his friends went ahead and put up snack stalls at fetes and fairs and were able to raise more money towards school fees of underprivileged children.

Much of the world's population, especially in poor countries, is made up of children and young people. To achieve a peaceful world, it is crucial that the rights of children and young people be respected. Following the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi, Indian activist Kailash Satyarthi has waged a peaceful struggle to stop children being exploited as labor instead of attending school. He has also contributed to the development of international conventions on the rights of children.

Soon Kailash realised that the major problem that was being faced by such children was their inability to afford school books, resulting in many children forced to drop out from school.

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Kailash along with one of his friends decided to do something about it. In Vidisha (his hometown in Madhya Pradesh), results of all classes in all schools used to be declared on April 30 every year. Kailash and his friends hired a pushcart.

While he chose to stand on the cart, his friend helped push it through the narrow lanes of his locality.

Yelling at the top of their voice, they started congratulating the students for passing the examinations.

This immediately caught the attention of people around them. When they saw enough people come out of their houses, they exclaimed “You all are so lucky that your children have been promoted to the next class,

but think about those children who do not even get an opportunity to attend school just because they cannot afford school books.

Old books are of no use to you and sooner than later you will sell them off at throwaway prices.

Your old books can light up the prospects of underprivileged children to attend school who were unable to do so all this while.

Think how grateful they and their parents would be to you for the rest of their lives.” This actually worked and the response was overwhelming.

People brought out heaps of old books and started donating in large numbers.

Kailash and his friends were arranging the books on the cart.

Soon the cart was flooded with old books. They dumped the books at a friend’s house and were back on the street to collect more. People were voluntarily donating the books.

That day they were able to collect over 2,000 books.

Kailash’s parents were not aware of this initiative.