Changing lives one child at a time

Two inspirational young women won OAMs this Australia Day for their work in India.

JYOTI SHANKAR reports

Accolades are not new to Jennifer Star. She graduated with First Class Honours from Macquarie University, represented Australia in Judo and achieved a bronze medal in the 2005 Youth Olympics, was named one of Australia’s 100 Brightest Young Minds in 2007 and won the 2012 NSW Young Australian of the Year.

This year she was declared a winner of Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM).

This last award, bestowed on Australia Day 2019, was given for her contributions to education.

Jennifer’s OAM citation commends her decade and over of work in the education sector supporting teachers to improve the quality of education for children in India, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

Never would have Jennifer imagined when she travelled to India that one day her life would be so involved with education.

She was studying to become an archaeologist, and though her father was a teacher, she herself was not inclined towards teaching. Until India happened. The reality of life in India changed her world view. Simple resources like classrooms, desks and books, taken for granted by students in Australia, were non-existent. Jennifer was appalled at the difference in the educational facilities but realised the exponential impact a single teacher could make on many lives. She returned home to Australia from her travels and decided to train to be a teacher.

Jennifer started Tara Ed in 2008 to improve the quality of education in India by training teachers. Starting with one school, 12 teachers and 400 children, Tara Ed aimed to improve the prospects of 20,000 children, 200 teachers and 20 schools by 2020. Now ten years on, this innovative organisation has trained over 600 teachers across the three countries of India, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, and impacted the lives of 18,200 children.And counting.

Jennifer returned to India after training as a teacher and has been living in New Delhi for the past nine years. She is very much at home in India now, comfortably navigating the cultural diversity of the country.

“I think I am more comfortable in India than Australia!” she declares.

While Tara Ed works predominantly in Maharashtra and Karnataka, Jennifer has also worked in schools in Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi.

“As I am based in Delhi, I speak passable Hindi and have a few words of Marathi,