A farmer’s daughter from Jharkhand village gets full scholarship from Harvard University

Hailing from a remote village named Dahu in Ormanjhi, Jharkhand, Seema Kumari, has overcome all odds and has managed to bag a full scholarship from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 

A football graduate of the NGO YUWA class of 2021, Seema has also been accepted to various other Universities like Middlebury College,Trinity College-Hartford, and Ashoka University, India. Working as a Football coach to pay her school fees, she was accepted to the Washington University of St. Louis' Young Leaders Institute for high school students in 2018.

Despite the low acceptance rate at Harvard University this year, Seema managed to secure a spot for herself. And now, she will be the first woman to attend a university to get a formal education in her family.

Meet the Daughter of the Farmer

Being the daughter of underprivileged parents who have never undergone any formal education and who relied on subsistence farming, Seema never felt it to be a hindrance.

Her father works as a labourer at a local thread factory, and thus, did not have funds to support her education. That’s when Seema decided to become a football coach, and became a part of the YUWA Football Team in 2012.

She broke all shackles and stood against child marriage and defended her right to get an education. Despite being ridiculed for wearing shorts, Seema kept playing football for many years and kept fighting against all odds.

Seema’s fight for gender equality

Seema is one of the few girls to bag the scholarship in Harvard University from rural India. As per records, only 39 percent of girls belonging to rural India attend high school against 45 percent of boys.

Although Seema, as of yet does not know what she wants to major in at Harvard University, she has a clear vision for her future, she says, "I want to see Gender equality in my village as well as the whole world. I have plans to start an Organisation for women in my village. The program would train women to be financially independent and provide them essential vocational skills and knowledge."

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