Alamelu Bannan talking to children

47-year-old Alamelu Bannan, who freed 1,856 families from bonded labour in Tamil Nadu over 27 years, has now become Alamelu Amma. She explains, "My brother and I were born into a Dalit family in a small village in Salem district, Tamil Nadu. As a result, we became bonded labourers. We would work in the fields with our entire family from 4:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.... We only got food as wages. And that too, so little that the entire family rarely had a full meal."

After two and a half years of such labour, at the age of 14, life changed when a kind teacher, Venkatasalam, rescued us from there and enrolled us in school. After completing school, I pursued a diploma in Cooperative Management, and then a B.Com. Books showed me a new world, but I could never forget

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