A 104-Year-Old's Journey to Literacy Inspires Many

In a remote village called Tiruvanchur in India, a determined woman decided to fulfill her lifelong dream of learning to read and write. "I was always upset that I couldn't understand what people were reading in the newspaper," she says now. "I've always been curious about what's happening in the world outside our village. I often asked family members to read the news to me and explain what something said. I wanted to be able to write my name and my address," says the 104-year-old woman, Kutyama.

Kutyama credits her neighbors with helping her achieve this challenging goal. They encouraged her every step of the way, advising her to enroll in evening reading and writing classes.

After several months of attending evening classes alongside children and teenagers, she learned to read and write in Hindi. She even took a national literacy test that's typically taken by first-grade students in India each year. She passed the test with a score of 89.

Kutyama shared that being from a lower caste in India, education was not an option for her as a child. "Our home was extremely poor, and I had to work. Education was reserved for girls and women from higher castes, not ours, called the 'Untouchables.' Every day, I had to do hard work at home and was responsible for cooking, cleaning, and washing for my large family. We were 11 siblings and two parents," she explained.

The Minister of Education in the state of Kerala, who heard about Kutyama's story, stated that age should not be a barrier to education, and he wished Kutyama great success in her studies.