The voice comes from one corner of the classroom.

“Ma’am, I have a question.”

Another hand goes up.

Archana Jaisal turns, listens and answers. Then comes another doubt, and another. In a rural Uttar Pradesh classroom, these may seem like ordinary questions. But to Archana, every child who feels comfortable enough to ask one represents something bigger: the opportunity to learn close to home.

It is the kind of classroom she wished more village children could have.

She knows what it means when education depends on circumstances: whether a family can afford coaching, whether a good teacher is nearby, or whether someone offers the right opportunity at the right time.

“I realised that the children were studying, but their studies were not really helping them,” she recalls of what she saw in villages.

That realisation eventually led her to start Shiksha Saathi, a rural education and livelihood startup that now runs over 78 learning centres across six districts of Uttar Pradesh, reaching more than 7,650 students with 67 teachers.

But the story began long before the first centre opened.

It began with her late father, Jagdish Ram.

From rickshaw puller to railway employee

Archana grew up in Ghazipur, where her father’s own childhood had been shaped by hardship.

Her grandfather died when her father was young, leaving the family struggling to survive. There was also pressure to get his sisters married. With little money coming in, her father had to make a difficult choice.

At 17, he began pulling a rickshaw.

Yet he continued his education alongside the work.

“In the beginning, he thought he would have to leave his studies and drive a rickshaw,” Archana says. “But gradually, he continued studying while working.”

He eventually completed his graduation.

His routine revolved around driving the rickshaw while finding time to study. One day, he struck up a casual conversation with a fellow rickshaw puller who had noticed him studying diligently over the past few months.

The man asked him, “Why don’t you apply for a railway job?”

Jagdish took the suggestion seriously.

“He didn’t know what to do next, but he applied for a railway job. He got the job and moved to Varanasi,” Archana recalls.

That one opportunity changed the family’s circumstances.

In Varanasi, he also found different ways to support the family while waiting for his career to settle. He painted boards and banners, made portraits and even wrote names and numbers on T-shirts.

“He used to make portraits and earn some more income. That is how my father survived in the city,” Archana says.

But perhaps the biggest thing he brought back from that struggle was a belief that his children should have a different life.

“My father did not want his children to grow up in the same circumstances he had,” she says.

A couple of months later, he brought his children to the city.

They studied, built new lives for themselves, and for a while, it seemed the family had finally moved beyond those difficult years.

When another challenge hit the family

Archana was still young when her father passed away.

His death left the family without the........

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