Jayanti Buruda, recipient of the first NWMI Fellowship (2017-18), describes her challenging journey from a village in the remote Malkangiri district of Odisha to becoming the first Adivasi girl to study and become a journalist. She feels the NWMI Fellowship recognised her potential and allowed her to follow her dream.

My name is Jayanti Buruda. I am an Adivasi girl from the Koya tribe. My life started in Serpally, a small village in Odisha’s Malkangiri district.  Since my childhood, it was a dream to pursue education somewhere outside but my father used to say if you have the desire to study, you can do so in any place. In the school that I studied there were hardly any teachers or any competition among the students, which was quite discouraging for me. But, anyway, with the guidance of my teachers I passed my tenth standard exam – the only student to pass, out of the 11 students in my class.