Denwa Meyor, 40, and Kunchok Dolma Meyor, 29, are residents of Kibithoo, one of the easternmost villages in Anjaw district of Arunachal Pradesh. Inhabited by people of the Meyor tribe, it is located about 7-8 km from the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the contested line that separates India and China. Their husbands work as porters with the Indian Army, like many men here. Denwa has two children, a 13-year-old daughter and a four-year-old son. Her daughter is in a hostel in Hayuliang, about 135 km away, as Kibithoo’s school runs only until Class 8 and English-medium education is limited in the area. Kunchok has a two-and-half-year-old son. He plays in the sun, oblivious of his mother’s worry about his education. “We want better education [closer home], and in English,” says Denwa. The State-run hostel costs ₹60,000-₹70,000 a year and making the monthly trip to see her daughter is expensive. Over the past year, the village of about 130 residents has witnessed its Primary Health Centre and residences of the schoolteachers being upgraded, and concrete tracks being laid under the Central government’s Vibrant Villages Programme (VVP).
Nijum Manyu, 32, a contractual government teacher from Tezu, 245 km away, who got his first posting in Kibithoo three years ago, says there are four teachers, and the school is being renovated, with a new badminton court as well.
