#WATWB: A Father Carves a Road through a Mountain for His Children

A while back, a man from Odisha, India, singlehandedly carved an 8km (5-mile) road through hilly terrain so that his children attend school.

His three sons used to spend six hours walking from their boarding school in Phulbani to the village of Gumsahi where Nayak lives. Fed up with seeing his kids stumble down the dangerous route, the 45-year-old vegetable seller grabbed a chisel, a pickax, and a garden hoe and began digging a safer path.

 

In a remote village in India’s state of Odisha, the schoolchildren needed to walk through 10 kilometers (6 mi) of thick brush, climbing up and down hills and boulders in each direction for three hours. It’s understandable why many of these kids gave up on their education.

But a father named Jalandhar Nayak was determined that his sons would receive an education. His boys moved closer to the school, and Nayak began to work. Armed with only a pickaxe and a crowbar, Nayak began clearing a road to the village in 2016. He pushed boulders and dug the earth so that it would be a flat surface. He worked from sunup until sundown, eight hours a day every day for two years straight.

A local news outlet heard about Nayak’s story. The government agreed that the village needed a road, so they paid him for his time and took over the construction where he left off. Once he got the media’s attention, he requested that the village get access to running water and electricity, too. After generations of this village having been so far removed from civilization, one man’s actions helped the entire community.

The rest of Jalandhar Naya’s story can be found here, here, and here.

Jalandhar Nayak. OdishaTV

This is the 20th celebration of the WE ARE THE WORLD BLOGFEST #WATWB which is carried out every last Friday of the month, and which aims to spread love and positiveness in this vulnerable world. A celebration of heroes who can still restore our faith in humanity, especially in this period when our world seems to be full of endless series of horrible happenings.

Our generous co-hosts for this month are:  Inderpreet Uppal, Sylvia Stein, Shilpa Garg, Simon Falk, Damyanti Biswas.

To sign up for We Are The World Blogfest, please see the guidelines below.

~~~GUIDELINES~~~

1. Keep your post to below 500 words, as much as possible.
2. All we ask is you link to a human news story on your blog on the last Friday of each month, one that shows love, humanity, and brotherhood. Something like this news  about a man who only fosters terminally ill children.
3. Join us on the last Friday of each month in sharing news that warms the cockles of our heart. No story is too big or small, as long as it goes beyond religion and politics, into the core of humanity.
4. Place the WE ARE THE WORLD Badge on your sidebar, and help us spread the word on social media. Tweets, Facebook shares, G+ shares using the #WATWB hashtag through the month most welcome. More Blogfest signups mean more friends, love and light for all of us.
5. We’ll read and comment on each others’ posts, get to know each other better, and hopefully, make or renew some friendships with everyone who signs on as participants in the coming months.
6. To signup, add your link in WE ARE THE WORLD Linky List