The fondest memory that Portia Putatunda has of her departed father is of him playing and singing nursery rhymes with children.

Carrying her father’s efforts forward, Portia runs a free boarding school today under the Planet Spiti Foundation.

While she visited Spiti Valley for the first time in 2013, it was after her father passed away that she visited the place again in 2018.

Portia stayed in Kaza with a local family for a month and started teaching their children. In 2020, she quit her job as a journalist and moved to Spiti.

Unsure of the first steps to take, Portia approached the children playing in the streets and the parks.

“I just spoke to the kids and told them that I will give them crayons and sheets and teach them art,” she says. Word spread among the little ones about her offer, and they started to show up in large numbers.

Portia then visited remote villages in the area and realised how the children there do not have any access to education.

In 2022, she moved to Komic and rented a place to start a free boarding school under her ‘Planet Spiti Foundation’.

Today, she says, this school has merged with a local private boarding school in Rongtong Village where over 150 kids are taught.

It was a task to convince the parents of these kids that education was important. But Portia was insistent on her dream.

“When I think about it, my greatest motivation is my father. All of this work and my foundation are a tribute to him. I’m just continuing what he started,” she says.

Portia is the primary school principal of the merged school and teaches the children everything from mathematics and science to English and art.

If you wish to help Portia, you can reach her at 93680 68121.