I am 40 years old and live in Nelagonda, in the Guntakal area, in the Uravakonda region. I am married to Vannurappa and we both belong to the Dalit caste, also known as “the untouchables”. My husband still remembers when he and his family were treated as slaves for the simple fact of being very poor.
We have three daughters and two sons. We recently had to marry two of my older children, Mallakka, 19, and Venkatesulu, 24. They have not been as lucky as their younger siblings, who have attended school as they had to help us working in the fields and caring for animals, especially when I got pregnant.
Before we lived in a small hut, in very precarious and insecure conditions. The walls were made of mud; the roof of palm leaves, bamboo sticks, and other vegetation, and it was very small. Since it was at ground level in the rainy season it flooded and our few belongings were damaged and could not be used, and even worse, the unhealthiness that this caused.
We used to go out around the hut a lot but we spent many sleepless nights since scorpion stings are very frequent in our area. We were also scared by the snakes that slipped through the bamboo.
In 2006, I was one of the beneficiaries of a housing construction project. We were lucky to get the land that the government offered, and even luckier when we got the financial help to carry out the construction of our new home.
The rest of my children have not only been able to attend school but also my second daughter, thanks to her good results, is attending her pre-university course in a center in Guntakal. If her results are good, she will be able to go to university, which is a dream sometimes unaffordable for poor people.