An isolated mountain village in China has been found to have a single steep rough ladder that leads to the solitary school in the area. It is over 800 meters long and the rickety journey has to be undertaken by every child in the village every day if he/she wants to get an education. It is simply both inspiring and sad to see the young children with their backpacks full of books and stationary making way towards the top in such a harsh terrain. Here, take a look at these pictures. They say it all:
The whole journey takes almost 90 minutes by foot and the images went viral after these pictures were released on the internet. They were taken by Chen Jie, an award winning photographer from China whose snaps of the Tianjin blast last year were declared one of the best piece of photography from the year 2015 at World Press Photo forum.
The use of social media is highly regulated in China and Chen had to use his WeChat account to describe what it felt to him to see all those children aged between six and fifteen climbing such a steep hill to go to school. He now hopes his pictures will help change this ordeal for the kids and they can get to school in an easier way and it seems to be working. In China, every small area has a Communist Party representative and that representative has finally vowed to construct a steel bridge in the short term and bring localized education to the poor village in the middle of nowhere.
All in all, the 72-member community has told media outlets that there is insufficient room to make a school on the mountain top and due to the steep climb and descent, six to eight people have lost their lives after loosing their grips and falling into the cliff. China has bettered its human development index after the economy was opened in 1980s. But, many far-off people in villages still live like this without basic amenities since a large focus of the country has been on urban centers and manufacturers. In this Atuler village, people still live on less than $1 per day.
So what’s your excuse for not going to school?
