This is the story of school children in Nihai village of Rajpur block, located 50 kms from Barwani district of Madhya Pradesh who came forward and fought against the irregularities in mid-day meal. The tribal village has its primary school in Sadadia Falia which has 37 students. The mid-day meal was being provided by a selfhelp group controlled by the brother of a school teacher. The students would often miss the mid-day meal but nobody had the courage to speak against him as the villagers were submissive.

MF organised a meeting with women self-help group after they came to know that the mid-day meal was not being provided to the children. But nothing came out of this as the women did not have the courage to speak out against him. The villagers came to know about a camp to be organised by Child Rights Commission on December 12 in Barwani to address the problems of the school children. It was decided that the problem must be placed before the commission through the students themselves. A group of students approached the commission and apprised the officials of the problem. The district magistrate after listening to them ordered that if within three days the mid-day meal was not regularized, the SHG would be removed and the actions would also be taken against the teacher. A few days later the block officials visited the school and had the mid-day meal started. They also instructed that the action be taken against the group and money be recovered for last three years which meant to spent on mid-day meal. The school inspired a nearby middle school which had faced the same problem. The school adopted the same strategy and resumed the midday meal.