Saving India’s Child Geniuses from Poverty

India's Beautiful Minds: IQ society Mensa is searching for impoverished child geniuses in India's slums. Gifted children with genius level IQs can win full scholarships, but escaping poverty is harder than any normal exam. A report by SBS Dateline.

When Mensa tested 12 year old Ritu Paswan, it looked like her life would change forever. With an IQ of 145, she moved school from a tent to a building with proper lessons taught in English. "I want to be a doctor when I grow up" she says. Mensa scholar Kishore Asthana uses the IQ test to uproot geniuses like Ritu from a life of poverty. "We have five to six million underprivileged children with an IQ above 130. We are trying to locate uncut diamonds, and we'll try to polish them up", he says. But childhood dreams of space exploration, medicine and law are still scuppered by the everyday realities of poverty, where child labour and early marriages take precedence over education.