Holding her phone at arm’s length, a crowd gathered behind her, Amreen Khan speaks into the camera. “Today, I am in Chandpura village,” she says, “where the government is trying to drive out residents from their homes, claiming the land belongs to the state.”
Over the next few minutes, Khan details the story of this village in Chhatarpur district, Madhya Pradesh, where she found dozens of people at risk of losing their homes. It is the kind of social injustice that the former nursery school teacher has long wanted to bring to light, but didn’t know how. Now, newly graduated from India’s first digital journalism school for rural women, she knows exactly how to do it. “I always wanted to do something to improve the condition of my village. I finally feel like my dreams are coming true.”
Khan, 35, is one of 270 women from villages in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar states who joined a pilot programme at Chambal Academy. The academy has sprung from the success of Khabar Lahariya, the rural, female-run news organisation that was the subject of award-winning documentary Writing with Fire in 2021.
