Little bravehearts

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A pair of slippers would have gone unnoticed in the river had it not been for the nine-year-old’s sharp instinct. Freedy Nongsiej from Meghalaya took a closer look when he saw a child drowning in Umran River in Ri Bhoi district and jumped in the river at once to save the child when he heard a woman screaming. Diagnosed with epilepsy at age of three, Freedy learnt to be courageous early in life.

“The woman was crying for her child, diving in the water was the only thing I could have done. Swimming comes naturally to me as I have grown up near a river,” says Freedy, who aspires to become a soldier. The little boy who showed no fear as he plunged into the river has been chosen for the National Bravery Awards 2010 along with 22 other bravehearts who will be awarded the National Bravery Awards on Republic Day, organised by Indian Council for Child Welfare.
Among them is 16-year-old Sunita Murmu who was sexually assaulted and paraded naked across three villages in May 2010 after being caught talking to a Muslim boy. Sunita lodged a complaint with the police and helped get some of the accused arrested. Now getting vocational training at a government welfare home, Sunita wants to open a girl’s welfare home to help them fight for their rights.
“I want no other girl to go through the same suffering that I underwent,” she says. The incident still traumatises her. “I will never go back to that village. If I go back, it is possible they might attack me again. I will study and become independent,” she adds.
Similar stories of bravery by children, some of whom even lost their lives while trying to save others, were narrated as the Educomp Solutions at the Constitutional club honoured these 23 kids.
Of them, six-year-old Chhampa Kanwar from Rajasthan lost her life trying to save her sister when their hut caught fire, and 13-year-old Shruti Lodhi from Uttarakhand died after a tree fell on her during a diabetes awareness walk. They are being honoured posthumously.
The coveted Geeta Chopra Award goes to 12-year-old Jismi PM, for saving the lives of two children who were drowning in a river and Priyanshu Joshi, 10, from Uttarakhand will receive Sanjay Chopra Award for single-handedly fighting off a leopard that attacked his sister while they were on their way to school. “I was a bit scared, but my parents have always taught me to save others’ lives even if my own life is at stake.”
These young bravehearts aspire to do something big. Bibek Sharma from Dehradun, who saved a five-year-old acoustic girl who fell from a two-storey building, loves adventure and wants to be a scientist.
For 16-year-old Vishnudas K., one of the three recipients of Bapu Gaidhani Award along with Ipi Basar from Arunachal Pradesh and Moonis Khan from Madhya Pradesh, it was the third time he saved people from drowning.
The winners include four children from Kerala, two each from Assam, Chhattisgarh, Meghalaya and Uttarakhand, three from Rajasthan and one each from UP, Sikkim, Manipur, Arunachal, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram and West Bengal.