Monday, June 15
The love of two sisters was eloquently illustrated recently by the following letter, translated closely from its Nepalese. Rita, the author is an incredible little girl that I have written about several times before.
“Little sister, this is Rita. I have given to Papa this for you from me. Little sister I have you in my heart in all time, I have your photo under my pillow and in the morning when I wake I first look at you and say good morning my little Gita, and at night before I sleep I look at you and say meet me in my dream sister.
Gita I asked of Papa to love you like the father you do not have, and I asked Anita Didi to show you love like a good mother. Little sister we have cried too many tears together and we will cry no more. I am sorry that I can not sit you on my lap and hold you like a mother should, I am sorry that we can’t sit together now. You will be strong without me; you will do good in the school so you will grow to be someone. You have many sisters and brothers now, this is your family.
Please do not cry ever for me; take this photo and when you need me look at me, close your eyes and feel my touch, see my smile, smell my hair and I will be with you.
Love from your sister Rita.”
This letter, the apple and orange that I had given all the girls for a treat the day before, and a warm hug and kiss on the cheek, her way of reaching for her sister; were given to me in Lawajuni by Rita, the morning I left these precious girls and started back to Dhapasi.
This is Gita on the right with Anita’s hand covering hers. All four of these girls are from Lawajuni and were part of the 26 girls Anita and I brought home some months back to our Papa’s Kalpana House in Dhapasi.
And this is Rita, center on her way to school one morning.
I spent last weekend at Lawajuni with our wonderful 53 girls; another six new girls have been brought home in this past month; each of them in a particularly acute stage of need, compelling Krishna to make the decision to bring them in. We are once again at capacity.
In spite of the austere lifestyle present in Lawajuni it is a very happy place and my three days passed one heartwarming minute on top of the next.
We purchased 30 metal storage boxes for all the new girls as a defense against the many mice who have been dining on the few clothes they own; and book bags so that they might have one other place to keep something of their own together. On my first morning the rains came hard and the girls stood collected under the narrow roof overhang, waiting for a hint of a break before running the 300 yards across to the school building. They had no umbrellas. Life isn’t so easy for them and when umbrellas, boxes, and school bags can fix small problems they become big and joyous events to these girls.
The evening of my arrival we ate around the fire outside and talked with the darkness and damp heat of night heavy upon us. Lawajuni is in the jungle region of Nepal bordering India; it is one of the poorest regions in Nepal. The country had recently risen from the 18 hour per day load shedding, no electricity, to the carefree six hours currently imposed; all except this poor region. For some reason it continues here; amazing how a people with a history of being trod upon can’t seem to escape it. But these girls never complain about it, or about the rain they were having to run through and remain soaked to the skin in class, about the teachers who seldom take the time to attend to their class, about the mice eating their only kurta salwar, or about the lack of a parent to care for them, to love them, to keep them safe and comfortable and feeling special. They have never complained about the lives they led before we brought them to Lawajuni. These are strong girls who look only at the good of the moment, and what others might not see as good, they do.
Nepal Orphans Home had recently received wonderful donations of hair ties and clips, books, clothing, costume jewelry, art supplies, and puzzles that I had brought with me. The girls felt a very different life when we distributed these; their smiles and excited squeals filled the room. They felt connected to an outside world full of mystery and promise. What seemed like an enormous amount of goods gets spread pretty thin with 53 girls, and it was humbling when afterwards the girls would come to me and express so much gratitude for what ended up being a few hair ties and clips, maybe a box of crayons or a coloring book, and possibly a t-shirt not quite tailor fit. That is the nature of these wonderful little girls.
The girls have continued to give superlative care to the four Jerseys; this is a pretty big task that eats a lot of time and requires patience and strength. The two calves are now big and strong and many times would gallop off against the wishes of the three or four girls going along for the ride at the rope’s end, laughing and shouting at the runaway calf.
The milk from the two older cows is sweet and abundant, and the milk sold back to the dairy has met the veterinarian cost and refurbishing expense of their unruly offspring. Soon it may provide the revenue for additional Jerseys to be purchased.
Our garden grows large and green and accounts for all the vegetables needed; and we have made some inroads to getting a medicinal plant garden started, thwarted earlier when our volunteer botanist was unable to get to Narti because of the two-week long Bundh. My optimism is solid; with time Lawajuni will be a self supporting home, and from which the girls will follow either academic or ad vocational interest. They will become independent and strong women who will help to see Lawajuni serve future orphaned girls of the Terai. We have a long ways to go, our next big hurdle the acquisition of land and building our collective style farm, but we will get there as assuredly as we have reached this stage; with the help of our donors and volunteers all things are possible.
Juno and Aruna at Lawajuni
In Dhapasi all are well. We had a period of a few weeks when the flu ran its whirlwind course through the homes, but all have retuned to health.
I am not sure where time has gone; seems like yesterday we were at the end of the year Sports Day events held at the Kathmandu Police Academy by the wonderful school our 99 Dhapasi children attend, The Skylark English School.
All the children had an exciting time competing against one another in a fun variety of silly and serious events. Chham, as usual, would not be beat in any event, and in those tandom events, like the wheelbarrow race in which the runner had the teammate’s legs around his waist and used his hands, Chham simply elevated his partner to the point where his hands never hit the ground and ran like the wind. It is not that one day Chham will be somebody; Chham is somebody now; he is the sweetest young man, as well as the strongest, most determined, and quietest. He loves helping the smaller children and they adore him. If I was hanging from a cliff, I would do so unnerved if Chham had my wrist. It is Chham who carried four eggs in his hand for a three-day strenuous mountain hike from his village as a gift to me; the most treasured gift I shall ever receive.
We are going to begin a new format for these updates. Starting at the end of this month we will have an update for all the events that have taken place concerning the NOH family for the preceding month. We will include information about the great volunteers who have shared time with us, about donations of gifts received, features on some of our 152 children, board member activities, and a general overview of life in Dhapasi, Narti, Dhumrikaka, and Votetar. We will clearly present a linear view of our lives and the effect that you all have on our children, and staff. A notice will be sent to our volunteers and donors at the time of posting the update and if you would like to be on that list please send us your e-mail address and you will automatically receive the alerts. This promises to be an exciting and complete read each month, helping to bring all of you much closer to our heart beat.
In closing I want to share a few photos taken in the past few days of our children helping us to make the new basketball court. We did not ask for their help. Vinod, the boys house “Sambhav” (Possibilities) manager; Anita the manager of the girls “Kalpana” Imagine House and I decided to do the work ourselves to save the several hundred dollars quote we had received. On Friday we managed to get the post and backboard raised. Early on Saturday morning the 26 boys and 26 girls conspiratorially met and started clearing the ground where the concrete court will go. The work was hot and difficult, the ground holding tight to roots and broken bricks long ago buried; I had a call from Anita suggesting I come to the home to “see this.” I arrived to find all the children working in perfect harmony, little children working together combining undeveloped muscles with ingenuity to clear the earth; neatly stacking debris and going back for more, backs and hearts bent to the task. They worked until lunch and after lunch Anita asked if they wanted to sit in the fanned coolness of the study room and watch a film and all of them said no, let’s get the basketball court ready for cement.
We are now ready for the cement and on our next “Holy” day, probably Saturday if another Bundh doesn’t come first, we will mix and lay out the cement. There is great pride in the children’s knowing that we can, as a family, make it happen.
Namaste
Papa
Friday, April 24
We have always focused upon our children in the update section and another is still forthcoming, which I am very excited about; however NOH has a few other projects in Nepal that we are very proud of and we think our readers would like to know about them as well. NOH created Volunteer Nepal a number of years ago in an effort to attract compassionate volunteers with an interest in sharing their skills in the many Nepalese communities that are somewhat out of the way and forgotten, as well as helping in our own four homes. In our www.volunteernepal.com site we featured the volunteers of 2008.
Almost two years ago NOH was introduced to two communities in the hill section of Nepal in a district called Ramechhap. One of the communities — Dumrikharka — is a three-hour straight uphill hike from the district seat of Manthali. The community there is made up of 90% Dalit caste; Dalits in the Hindu order are “untouchables.” Laws were placed on the books several years ago banning prejudice in all practices but unfortunately people's learned behavior is harder to mandate, and this age-old system is far too entrenched to give way. This wonderful community has been forgotten by the government, and as the people are Dalit they must rely upon themselves to get by. Outside jobs for Dalits are limited to the type of work where one would not come in contact with higher caste; Dalits are not even allowed to carry goods sold in stores to higher caste, as anything touched by a Dalit may not be touched by upper caste. We found in Dumrikharka a community of extraordinarily warm and deserving people laboring under the harshest of imposed conditions.
Dumrikharka Village Renewable Energy Program
Peter Hess, the president of NOH, began collaboration with FOST, a Kathmandu-based NGO (Foundation for Sustainable Technologies) through e-mail with its founder, and decided that Dumrikharka would benefit by implementing the cooking fuel technology in concert with retrofitted cooking hearths in the people's homes.
During his last visit Peter met with FOST and purchased some of the equipment necessary for this while learning firsthand about the many technologies FOST has developed. Shortly thereafter we had a volunteer application from Ethan Smith, a young man from Oregon with degrees in industrial design and sustainable planning and design, who asked if we could place him and his partner Ashley Sullivan, who has similar degrees, for a period of four to six months. Some might call this serendipity.
We arranged for Ethan and Ashley to attend many workshops with FOST and they ended up developing a close personal relationship with the founder. Soon they were ready to go to Dumrikharka along with a staff member of Volunteer Nepal and introduce simple technologies that have been life changing.
We set up a dozen of the village women as a co-op, and Ethan and Ashley taught them to make cooking briquettes out of waste materials easily collected and mixed with other organic debris. The mix is pressed and the resulting briquette is dried for later use. NOH bought two presses and two cookers for the co-op and supplied the initial money for all the necessary implements to begin. The idea is that these 12 women will collectively make briquettes and use them in their own homes. Surplus briquettes will be sold in Manthali or to other villages and the income from that will go to supporting the school. Eventually a very robust cottage industry will be in full swing and NOH will be able to wean its support away from the school, and the village will become a prosperous, self-reliant, and proud one.
Sustainable energy for cooking ushers in health, as the briquettes are comparatively smoke free, and by retrofitting them to their cooking hearths all the smoke is now directed outside. It is also eco friendly as the limited amount of trees are spared now.
Here below are photos taken by Ethan Smith during their work with the elected village co-op.
  
  
 
Dumrikharka Family Life
Much like early pioneers in American life these folks are working with the land in order to make something for themselves, but with the additional hardship of being ostracized and having to battle the prejudices of one of humanity's oldest religions. Again, NOH is very proud to be able to work side by side with this wonderful community. The following photos were very touchingly taken by Ethan Smith.
 
 
   
 
  
 
School Life in Dumrikharka
The school receives no government funds and was without any up to date books, benches, teaching aids, and had a teaching staff of four local young men and woman receiving very little for their efforts. The Board of Directors at NOH decided to become involved with the school. We paid a group of local women to make uniforms for the 100 or so children then attending the school; we bought books, teaching aids, benches, copies, pencils, erasures, etc.; we subsidized the teachers in order to help them to afford to become better devoted; and maybe most importantly we started a hot lunch program enlisting more of the local women to conduct the program.
The children in the school were undernourished and a little malnourished, and this program substantially improved their nutrition and ability to concentrate in school. The children have had a much healthier year, and school attendance is very high now; we have almost all of the 140 school-age children attending regularly.
With the few simple measures initiated by NOH, made possible from our donors and funds from volunteers, we have been able to help this village help themselves. It has not taken long, and the effect is easily measured in the invigorated spirit and the sense of accomplishment in the entire village, from the very young to the village elders. This remains a popular placement for volunteers, the effect of which further raises the village pride in hosting these volunteers and learning English from them.
The following photos were once again exclusively taken by Ethan Smith and Ashley Sullivan.
 
  
  
 
 
 
In closing we want to thank Ethan Smith and Ashley Sullivan for their very heartfelt work with Volunteer Nepal, and the extraordinary execution of it in Dumrikharka. These guys have made a profound difference not in the lives of one or two but in a whole village. In a few days they will be returning to Oregon, Ashley to pursue medicine and Ethan returning to his freelancing in sustainable planning and design.
 
Thursday, March 12
Wanting to leave your home in the hope for something better is an idea many think they are at ease with even though letting go and trusting in the future takes a great deal of faith and courage; but when the moment comes to look your friend in the eye and say “farewell, I am going to leave you now” it is always requires poignant determination.
Nepal Orphans Home recently moved our 24 boys into their new quarters on the same grounds as their previous home shared with Volunteer Nepal. We then found a wonderful house to rent midway between our two Dhapasi Homes and completed the installation of volunteers there; turning our attention then to the old Volunteer/boys home for the arrival of 24 of our girls from Lawajuni in order to alleviate the over crowding that by necessity had taken place while we attempt to rescue as many as we could.
Anita Mahato, our senior most girl, had come to a crossroad in her academic career about a month ago and decided not to further pursue school. After a month of deliberation she chose to accept the position of “Girls Hostel Didi,” she would run the new Home. Many of our Lawajuni girls knew Anita from previous trips she had made there, most recently taking two volunteers over to teach. She is a wonderful young woman with great patience, love, and humor guiding her approach to child care. So on Saturday morning, February 28th she and I, along with Randi Miller, a new volunteer from New York boarded a large rented bus and began our journey to Narti. The bus was old and loose, a night bus of the lonely Delhi-Kathmandu run, but it’s fading from an earlier glory now made a match with our budget. The trip over was pretty much uneventful, two small flare-ups bringing a halt to passage along the highway, but both rather quickly resolved.
We learned at these stops that a bundh was scheduled to start on Monday morning that would block all movement for three days so it forced us to abbreviate our stay in Narti and leave on Sunday afternoon.
Anita comforting Asha, who would not be going to Dhapasi
We arrived late and in the dark the girls at Lawajuni could make out the lights of the bus as it stopped on the highway to let us out. They came running surefooted in the night to greet us and breathe in the reality of the bus that would soon carry some of them a little further from their recent emancipation.
We had two new girls in the crowd who had been rescued since my last visit, one just the day before. Amrita and Aruna stood back a little, still fresh in the bubble of change; pleasant and wide eyed, quick with their smiles, taking in the chaos of our welcome. Soon our many bags were collected by the girls and we headed towards the single bulb that slightly illuminated the shape of home.
All too quickly the next day passed and the exhausted screech of air brakes announced the bus had arrived and it was time to go. The final list had been made during the day, always a very difficult and sad task. Arm in arm all the girls walked towards the highway and the moment of truth.
I read out the names of the girls to account for all while these precious little souls offered final tearful hugs to their friends and one by one climbed into the bus. Lawajuni was their first Home after being rescued, it was their incubator where they comforted one another and took their first uneasy steps as free humans, alone but for all the other girls with similar histories; the bonds made among these girls is strong.
Difficult goodbyes between the 24 going and the 38 remaining.
Rita third from left with her arm around another.
The three-man bus staff was an impatient lot, completely lacking in sensitivity for the moment. The driver began blasting his horn for us to begin; the relief drivers pacing next to the bus slapping its side occasionally like a cowboy would a cow to get it moving along. I was the last to enter and as I turned to climb the stairs, Rita, older sister of Gita who was cheerfully on the bus, unexpectedly came and quickly kissed my cheek, tears streaming down her own; and said thank you for taking Gita and letting me stay. Rita had calmly explained to me that afternoon that Narti was her new Home and she wanted to be there to work with SWAN and have the Kamlari practice stopped. Rita was part of a committee from Lawajuni who came to Dhapasi for a few days last month and had an audience with the President of Nepal to petition him to support a bill outlawing the selling of children. She is a thirteen year old child activist with all the muster of a 50 year old life long crusader. A Kamlari for many years, she has never had a childhood and has passed this opportunity for one in order to fight for the rights of other young girls; but she would not allow her little sister to miss out on learning what it is like be a daughter at Papa’s House. This is the stuff these girls are made of; anyone would be proud to know her.
The bus crew shared a large area sectioned off from the passengers and once ensconced never looked back at their “load.” The old bus groaned off with a weight these guys would never feel, the weight of lives in transition. A couple of kilometers later we were up to speed when a slight voice rose above the din of a thousand metal parts shuttering free from their berth. “Papa, I have to go to the toilet.” This was the first of 1742 “Papa’s” I would hear through the long night. I asked if she could wait until we had at least three minutes of road behind us; suddenly feeling a little uneasy with the idea of tapping on the door of the angry crews’ cabin so soon after reaching cruising speed, and asking them to stop.
It was a cold night, and Nepali children are not conditioned to movement. “Papa” has a different sound depending upon the emergency, but getting ready to vomit has it in an upper octave and I would race to the source of sound and fight open the jarred shut windows not always in time. Curtains snapping hauntingly by the cold wind, a few small fluorescent overhead lights colored our surreal cocoon in an eerily blue light as the unlit mountain passes lurched us side to side; girls waking from slumber and calling my name just seconds before loosing it. Fathers develop hearing like that of hawks, and the plaintive cry of a daughter, even in the deafening din of the bus, is as clear to them as a small injured mouse might be to the Hawk flying hundreds of feet overhead.
On the second roadside break all the girls stepped off the bus like drunken sailors, and I stood at the stairs helping them and counting; I came to 26. How could this be with a list of 24? I had verified the presence of the 24 who were on the list but never had counted to see if we had stowaways. Two precious little girls, innocent in their 8-year-old reasoning, had snuck aboard. Once all 26 were back on the bus I would set my sights on a tree in order to be opportunistic; but inevitably the miscreant crew would start to pull away forcing me to do an awkward gallop towards the open door, cursing their existence.
At midnight we stopped at an open “restaurant” where they serve dhal baht, and only dhal baht, in huge portions. Our girls did not want to eat but all 26 did want me to take them, three at a time, to the outhouse way behind the establishment where the family owners lived. After the fifth trip past the disbelieving eyes of the wife/owner she asked, “Well, they eating?” And when I meekly said no, just going to the toilet, I was offered her most melting glare. With four more trips past, the tension built as the staff sat with dirty aprons smoking and watching sullenly.
A fresh round of vomiting soon gave way to a pretty deep sleep for all the girls. I careened like a pinball to the back of the speeding bus with its hell bent driver, trying to close windows against the cold blackness; then returned to my seat with Anita and dropped off into my own oblivion.
Silence and stillness woke me two hours later and the familiar site of Basundhara on Ring Road, where we should be turning to make the one and a half mile bumpy road ride to Dhapasi; only, these guys had decided they had driven enough and we would be walking.
The stillness felt too serene, too calm and quiet; protest never entered my mind. I welcomed back my tinnitus, the constant, out of synch orchestra playing in my ears. We woke the children and gathered their small bags containing their earthly possessions and stepped out into the refreshing embrace of a calm semi moonlit night. It was 3 a.m. and the excitement of being near straightened out limbs and put some perk in the children’s step as we marched up the hills towards Home. I called Vinod and asked him to be ready to open the gate, and 20 minutes later a small beam of light reached our eager eyes as Vinod stood scanning the road.
At the gate Anita ushered the children into their new home and said her own farewell to me and the child she was leaving behind. She was a young woman now, an adult member of our family, big sister and mom to 26 little girls. Three years of braiding her hair daily, helping with homework, caring for her when she would be sick, comforting when sad or afraid, and not realizing how quickly time tumbles into itself when a moment like this new chapter stops one in their tracks, she has grown up now and taken on a grown-up’s life.
I continued home alone and quietly made my way to my room, unpacking and having a cold bucket bath, making coffee and waiting for morning to wake my children.
The new children and our girls in Papa’s House saw one another during the tiffin break from school at the girls’ home for the next four days but did not get a real chance to meet. We planned a welcoming on the following Saturday at Papa’s House for the new girls and the 10 boys who were never properly welcomed in the same manor eight months earlier.
Our girls were looking forward to meeting their new sisters when time would allow for play and relaxed conversation. I said for the welcoming I wanted them to make two lines by our gate and when the new children arrived they would file thru the lines and to a table where we set up a bowl with Tika, another with flowers, and a third with chocolate bars. I asked Gita to give each child a tika and Dawn Kumari a flower and the candy. Our volunteers came up to photograph and be a part of it; and curious neighbors stood along our walls watching. Anita was walking the children up from their home while our kids stood quietly in line, thinking I suppose about the children and how they might feel. I stood at the gate and when little Gita’s smiling eyes and toothless grin came around the corner leading the procession I opened it wide. The children filed in looking a little shy; the children in line were in still observation, but when Gita reached the table with all the children in a long line behind her the Papa’s House girls broke into a huge applause that purchased uncontrolled smiles from all the new children; it was a very moving ovation, followed by the new children facing each line and bowing in Namaste.
Gita with Sunita leading the new children in the gate.
This was a great day of play with the children free to explore and make new friends. Saturdays will always be family day and all our 97 children will be together at Papa’s House.
I will leave you now with some random shots from that most memorable of days. This update was placed in front of the still unfinished end of the year review that I have been trying my best to complete. I hope to find a way this next week to finish it so please check back.
With great appreciation for our small group of very loyal donors, and all of our volunteers for helping us to give a good life and family to our children; and with the fervent hope that our donors will one day be able to meet their Nepalese children; I bid you, Namaste!
Papa
A rooftop shot not quite fitting everyone in.
Our 26 new girls and SnowBall, our family dog.
Our 10 boys from many months before now properly welcomed, but always loved.
Tuesday, February 17
They say that 1,000 deaths is a statistic and one death is a tragedy. In talking about girls who have been sold into slavery in Nepal, some of those who keep records have suggested 40,000 in the few years since anyone cared enough to track it. This can be a mind numbing figure; 40,000 human beings born female in a horribly impoverished country are traded and treated with all the emotional intensity one would apply to livestock. Nepal Orphans Home is committed to helping to abolish this practice.
Last month I introduced you to eight Kamlari girls who we were able to rescue and bring to our “Lawajuni” (New Beginnings) Home in Narti by the kindness and largess of people in Toronto, Canada, who came to the annual Christmas “Possible Worlds” fundraiser put on by our own board member Toni Thomson, the award-winning documentary filmmaker.
At this time I would like to present the “Cleveland 15” who were rescued in response to the extremely kind people of Cleveland, Ohio, who answered the call of Jesse Bach, a 2008 member of our Volunteer Nepal family. Jesse went to Lawajuni, where he taught English and lived with the girls for a month. Jesse was profoundly moved by the hearts and minds of the girls he came to know so well, and learning of the hundreds more still enslaved, he made me a promise that he would not rest until he has helped us bring an end to this practice. He has been good to his word, and in December held the first annual “Imagine” benefit with the aid of Jonathan and Candace Koslen, as well as many others. Since this event Jesse has managed to further inform and inspire and is looking at a return trip to Nepal this summer in the company of a few more volunteers.
And here now is the balance of girls who have been rescued in 2008 by SWAN after the commitment by Nepal Orphans Home to house, educate, clothe, feed, and restore to them their dignity and help them to have a new faith in the family of man. There are no statistics here, just individual humans much like you and I when we were children; but as it was written, these children have suffered the loss of parents and had to deal with unconscionable inhumanity. If you could sit with one of these children for an hour; share their laughter, thoughts, interest; and feel their kindness and complete lack of anger or hatred; listen to the beauty of their observations and be drawn into their eyes and soul by precious smiles and utter gentleness; then together we would find the way to make enough homes so that all these little girls could know what it is like to have the love, care, and support of a real family. This too, I believe is written.
An update on our boys and girls in Dhapasi is now in the works and will be posted soon.
With a heart full of gratitude to all those who have helped our children,
Namaste,
Papa
Friday, January 9
I would like to donate this update to the 53 volunteers from 12 countries who spent between two weeks and five months each with Volunteer Nepal, the volunteer arm of Nepal Orphans Home. Each of these good people showed the strength of character to step into the unknown and work alongside some of the most gracious and beautiful people on earth. They came to teach, to train, to improve facilities, to heal the sick, comfort the lost, befriend the hopeless; to be temporary Moms and Dads, big brothers and sisters, and they did so with kindness and love.
They came a little uncertain, eagerness mixed with apprehension, and they left with a new sense of pride and accomplishment. They dug deep within themselves and found what they are made of. They saw how the universe works, how so many have to battle the forces of life just to eat each day; they felt the joy of young girls freed from indentured servitude; they received the smiles of remote village students being taught English by a foreigner; they were moved by the hugs of gratitude from the young and old where they served in medical clinics; they were touched countless times by the poor who smilingly prepared and shared their small evening meals with this volunteer from places they will never visit. Volunteering is life changing for all parties involved. We are extremely grateful to each of these fine people for their effort in behalf of Nepal Orphans Home.
Nepal Orphans Home is very proud to present our eight newest girls freed from indentured servitude in the last week of 2008. These eight bring the total amount of Kamlari girls rescued in 2008 to 62. We are able to do this with the help of many: SWAN International, a local Tharu NGO that has worked tirelessly against strong tides of opposition from those who profit from the practice; from the wonderful support of our donors who specify this as the target of their contributions. These eight young girls in particular owe our ability to free them to The Possible Worlds benefit held before Christmas in Toronto by Toni Thomson, the award-winning documentary filmmaker. Please see the update on her benefit below and the Imagine benefit in Ohio, also held in behalf of the Kamlari girls previously rescued and those who will be rescued shortly.
Srijana K.C. 8 years old. Fatherless, Mother unable to care for her. Not Kamlari. Youngest of four sisters rescued.
Asha K.C. 12 years old. Third in line of the four sisters. She was Kamlari for four years.
Gita K.C. 13 years old. The second in line of four sisters. She was Kamlari for five years.
Bimala K.C. 15 years old. The eldest daughter. Kamlari for seven years.
Rita Chaudhary 14 years old. Mother died, Father sold her. Kamlari for 2 years. Wants to be a social worker.
Ranjita Chaudhary 12 years old. Both parents alive but very poor, sold her one year ago.
Junu Chaudhary 10 years old. Parentless. Doesn’t recall how long a Kamlari, but very long time.
Sushma Chaudhary 13 years old. Father died and mother sold her.
Doesn’t now recall how many years it has been.
I will be going to Lawajuni on Monday the 12th of January. Upon my return we will post pictures of all 62 girls and also will offer a year-end update on our 71 beautiful boys and girls in our two Dhapasi homes.
Until then. Thank you very much!
Sincerely,
Papa
Monday, January 5 – 2nd Annual Possible Worlds Christmas Party
Another special event was held in Toronto, Canada on December 4th — the 2nd Annual Possible Worlds Christmas Party! Despite challenging economic times, all those who attended generously opened their hearts and embraced the incredible efforts of Nepal Orphans Home, jumping at the chance to be a part of such an important event to support our Lawajuni project — freeing more young girls from child slavery in Nepal. It was a very successful event with a great turnout, lots of unique silent auction items and live music, including impromptu sessions with Wicked Grin and traditional Erhu musician Wu-Jian, as well as a surprise visit from world renowned baritone saxiphonist David Mott. It was a very special night for a very special cause! Thanks to all for their heartwarming support.
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