February 2003 Dispatch from Kathmandu
Feb 2003

Kathmandu, Nepal

Dear Friends:

Hello once again from cold and foggy Kathmandu. So much is happening here I can hardly keep up. Let me give you a brief taste—starting with rescuing even more girls from servitude.

Last month, our staff went out to Dang in western Nepal, where our "indentured daughters" program helps girls who had already been sold or who were in danger of this terrible fate. As you may recall, in the ethnic community where this is a practice, the contracts for the girls' labor are entered into between the parents and the labor contractors on a particular holiday which falls in the middle of January. It is important that we continue to support girls already enrolled in the program, so we had planned to add only 100 new girls this year (since we must commit to them in the future as well). But our program has proved so popular that additional families were clamoring to enroll their daughters. And such girls! If you can believe it, one little girl whose family wanted our help was only five years old. She had been sent off to work as a baby-sitter a year ago to a city 100 kilometers from her home. Neither she nor her parents were paid any wages; she worked only for room and board.

How could we possibly say no? So we added 123 girls. That also means, of course, 123 new piglets given to the parents as compensation for their daughters' lost wages. Lots of squealing.

But the rewards—well, I don't have to tell you. These girls will no longer have to do backbreaking labor in the homes of strangers, far from home. I will include a picture of the darling five-year-old in my next newsletter. The newly freed girls are now enrolled in a literacy program to give them a leg up when their formal schooling starts in the summer.

And that's only part of what's happening at NYOF. Here's another story—a modern day Cinderella tale.

Since our inception in Nepal in 1990, we have been associated with an excellent children's orthopedic hospital. Several of our disabled children came to us through them. A couple of months ago, we received a request to help a l3-year-old girl named Tara. She is from a very remote area of Nepal. Her mother died some years ago, and her father remarried and has children by his second wife. Enter a real-life wicked stepmother. She refused to send Tara to school and sometimes even refused her food. One day, Tara climbed a tree to shake down some apples because she was hungry, and she fell to the ground, breaking an arm and a leg. She did not receive any medical care for weeks following the accident. Ultimately, her father brought her to the hospital, the doctors performed surgery, and she came through the experience without significant disability.

Every time the nurses suggested that she return home, Tara would burst into tears. Nor did her stepmother want her to return. Tara's dream was to stay in Kathmandu and work as a servant somewhere. School was a privilege beyond her imagination.

We have placed her in a Kathmandu boarding school that is skilled in helping late-start youngsters like her integrate into regular classes. She is clever, and the teachers tell us that she will be able to catch up academically without too much difficulty.

NYOF to the rescue once more! I can hardly express how satisfying it is to do this work. You too should share in this feeling of satisfaction: It is because of your donations that we can help Tara, the 123 new girls in Dang, and so many others.

I'll be in touch again soon. Warmest regards to you.

Olga