Tuesday, July 12 2005 19:55 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

London: An Indian girl who grew up in a remote leper colony in Bihar has overcome all odds to graduate with flying colours from the UK.

Rina (26), one of 3000 Sunderland University students felicitated at a graduation ceremony yesterday (July 11, 2005), has perhaps faced more challenges in her young life than her fellow students.

Not content with three A-levels in Pharmacy, Rina is now concentrating on her next challenge - medical school. She also hopes to return to India to help fight the disease that devastated her family.

"To be a qualified pharmacist and to know about healing drugs is wonderful, but to be a doctor who can prescribe those drugs would be the perfect combination," Rina was quoted as saying by 'The Telegraph' in London today (July 12, 2005).

"So many people in India do not understand that leprosy can be simply cured with drugs - that if you catch the disease early it can take only three months to heal the skin," she said.

Rina was barely seven years old when her father was afflicted by leprosy. Driven out of their village, her illiterate father was reduced to begging at Raxaul near the Nepal border, before the family found shelter at a leprosy mission in Sunderpur.

Having picked up reading and writing skills at the mission school, Rina's life changed for the better after a chance meeting in 1994 with Lady Patsy Puttnam of Queensgate who was touring community projects in India.

Impressed by the teenager's desire to learn, Lady Puttnam and her friend Daphne Rae arranged for a scholarship position for Rina at the Gordonstoun public school in Scotland.

After that, there was no looking back. Today, no one can be more proud of Rina than her guardian Lord Puttnam, who also happens to be the Chancellor of Sunderland University.

"It's a wonderful achievement. She has an extraordinary combination of vision and determination," he said.

"The great thing about her is that she has this genuine personal ambition, but, like a lot of people in the developing world, she also understands the purpose of that ambition, which is that it should be used for the public good," he added.