TRUTIYA RATNA · STORIES OF IMPACT
Community Libraries & Knowledge Centres
नेतृत्व विकास
उच्च शिक्षा सहायता
TR Team Member
Vicky Kumar: From Community Educator to Program Coordinator
Orphaned young, he built a community library and knowledge centre, earned two more degrees along the way, and now helps run the organisation that once supported him.
Vicky Kumar was born and brought up in a rural village in Jehanabad district, Bihar, in a Dalit hamlet, and belongs to a Scheduled Caste community. His mother died shortly after his birth; his father, a farmer who also ran a small ration shop, raised him alone and made sure he could study — despite having only completed his own schooling up to graduation. When Vicky was in the third year of his own degree, his father passed away too, leaving the family without support.
It was around this difficult period that Trutiya Ratna, already working in his village, stepped in — covering his education and living costs so he could continue studying without interruption. Vicky credits the organisation’s founders, Sunita Vishwas and Prasann, with standing by him through this period.
Before connecting with the organisation, Vicky held many of the superstitions common in his community — rituals, black threads, and practices he’d never questioned. That began to change once he started spending time in the community library and knowledge centre, reading about social reformers and thinkers.
“The more I read, the more the superstition faded.”
Trutiya Ratna’s work centres on children from SC, ST, and OBC families too poor to afford tuition, but who want to learn. Vicky initially just tutored children the way a coaching class would. Then the organisation sent him for training — first in Siwan, Bihar, and later in Goa — where he learned, for the first time, how to actually work with children: how to teach, how to communicate, how to run and maintain a community library and knowledge centre properly.
With Trutiya Ratna’s continued support, Vicky went on to complete his MA in Hindi from Magadh University, and has now enrolled for an MSW at IGNOU — pursuing it alongside his growing responsibilities at the organisation. He joined Trutiya Ratna as a Community Educator and today works as a Program Coordinator, helping run the very community libraries and knowledge centres and training programmes that once gave him a second chance.
“Being part of this community library and knowledge centre means one thing to me,” he says. “Making sure the children of our community are educated, so they don’t face the difficulties later that we did.”