NYF working to stop early marriage

Using street theater, leaflets, posters, counseling sessions and house visits, NYF staff and counselors are working hard to encourage young women in western Nepal to stay in school and resist family pressure to marry early.

Last year, counselors reached nearly 2,500 teachers, parents, community members and girls who were formerly indentured servants through orientation sessions, street drama, house visits and leafleting public bulletin boards. Staff registered several cases of early marriage with the local police.

The project is part of NYF’s Empowering Freed Kamlaris program which helps former Kamlari girls become healthy, happy and independent young women. NYF has rescued more than 12,000 girls since launching our campaign against the Kamlari system in 2000.

Changing attitudes and ending the practice
While marriage before the age of 18 is illegal, police and community members have tended to ignore the issue. Families often view their daughters as an economic burden and pressure them to marry, and this has been a particular problem for the girls we have rescued from Kamlari slavery.

NYF hopes to end the practice of early marriage by making girls, boys and their families aware of the negative health and economic consequences of dropping out of school and marrying young.

We have also formed 21 support groups for boys, with a total of 225 members. We’re happy to report that boys have enthusiastically embraced the cause and are sharing information with their families and communities.

Finding a way forward
NYF helped sixteen-year-old Santoshi, a former Kamlari servant, resist family pressure to get married. Suffering from severe depression, Santoshi’s friends encouraged her to join a NYF counseling support group where she learned to talk about her problems and develop strategies to deal with them. Counselors also visited her family and talked about how early marriage could negatively affect Santoshi’s life.

It’s working. Santoshi is now in NYF’s Vocational Education and Career Counseling program, where she is learning job skills and working hard to build a bright future for herself.

(Santoshi gave us permission to use her name and photo for this report.)

Learn more:

Read about our Empowering Freed Kamlari Program.

Watch the ABC7 News video about NYF’s work to free girls from slavery.

Read about NYF’s Vocational Education and Career Counseling.

Flood Relief: NYF helps 1,200 families

Thank you! In just one week our Flood Relief Campaign raised over $32,000.
With your support, we’ve helped 1,200 families who have just lost everything.

On August 24-25, just one week after the flood hit, NYF staff and volunteers began distributing survival kits packed with essential items: tent, sleeping mat and mattress, blankets, pots and pans, utensils and more. This initial distribution aided 216 families in the Bardiya district in west Nepal.

By August 31, our distribution of flood relief supplies had reached another 615 families in the Bardiya and Banke districts, bringing the total number of families served to 831. Of these, 137 are the families of former Kamlari girls, and 76 of them are completely homeless.

By mid-September, we had delivered supplies to a total of 1,200 families.

NYF is the first humanitarian organization to reach out to these villages and distribute a complete set of relief materials. The NYF team was led by Man Bahadur Chhetri, Regional Manager of our Empowering Freed Kamlaris program, seen on the left in the photo above.

The distribution was organized in coordination with the Red Cross and the local government, which provided security to ensure the process was safe and fair.

Flood Relief Campaign was a success!
During the month of August, devastating floods caused widespread damage in Nepal, as reported on FOX News and the New York Times.

Particularly hard hit were the districts of Banke, Bardiya and Dang in western Nepal, the area that is home to the thousands of former Kamlari girls that NYF serves.

We launched our Flood Relief Campaign right away — and in just one week our friends and supporters raised over $32,000, enough to complete our distribution of relief supplies to families in the affected areas.

We immediately purchased food, tents, cookware, clothing and medicines, and we’ve now distributed survival kits to the hundreds of NYF participants who have lost their homes.

Thank you for caring about children and families in Nepal!

Here are more photos from our distribution in Bardiya, August 24-25:

Kamlari co-ops grow with your help

Thanks to supporters like you, we raised over $20,000 during the month of June for the Freedom Loan Fund — a micro-lending program that gives young women in Nepal who spent their childhoods as Kamlari slaves the opportunity to start a business and make a new life.

The freed Kamlaris have formed 37 business co-ops, now with 3,000 members, to support each other in building businesses. So far, more than 750 young women have used co-op loans to launch businesses such as vegetable farms, sewing shops, beauty salons, and even a motorcylce repair shop. And now, thanks to your support of the Freedom Loan Fund Campaign, another 70 former Kamlaris will be able to get a loan and start a business.

Co-ops get more organized
The Kamlari co-ops recently formed a network to give the young women the opportunity to share their experiences and improve the way they work together. Representatives from each co-op will meet regularly to share progress reports, create action plans and to review opportunities and challenges. NYF has also recently hired a manager to coordinate the rapidly expanding co-op movement.

Thanks for your support!
Thanks to all of you who have helped these amazing young women to build a better life for themselves and their families. We look forward to updating you on their progress.

Learn more:

Watch the ABC7 News video about NYF’s work to free girls from slavery.

Read about our Empowering Freed Kamlaris Program.

NYF news: Victory! Kamlari Child Slavery System Ends.

J&K Village: From dream to reality

Surrounded by their J&K House brothers and sisters and other well-wishers, five children laid the cornerstone of their new home on Saturday on July 19.

The joyful ceremony brought us closer to our dream of building a permanent residence for the vulnerable children in our care.

Crews began construction of the new children’s village last month. The complex will have houses for the boys and girls, a dining hall, two hostels for the teenagers, farmland, large play area, a vocational education center and a guest house.

We are booking the movers for October 2015. We hope you will join us for the inauguration!

One thing we’re still working on is coming up with a great name for the new village, and you can help. Please send your suggestions for a new name to Jackie Frost, our Development and Communications Manager at jfrost@staging.nepalyouthfoundation-old.flywheelsites.com. Thank you!

Learn more:

Read about our children’s homes.

NYF’s Freedom Loan Fund on ABC7 News!

From child slaves to free business women — a transformation in Nepal.

Many thanks to ABC7 News for telling the story of our campaign to end the Kamlari system of child slavery. This 3-minute video shows the former Kamlaris at work in their new businesses, and talks about the co-op loan program that is making this transformation possible.

Please share this video with family and friends, and let them know they can help by joining the Freedom Loan Fund Campaign. With your support, we’ll give hundreds of former child slaves in Nepal the opportunity to start a business and make a new life.

We did it — thank you!

With your help, we raised over $20,000 for the Freedom Loan Fund Campaign.

Girls who were rescued from the Kamlari system of child slavery are now free — and they’re becoming powerful young women who are starting their own businesses with help from a co-op loan program funded by Nepal Youth Foundation (NYF).

It’s already a huge success. The freed Kamlaris have formed 37 business co-ops with over 2,600 members. And they’ve already reinvested $40,000 back into their co-op loan fund.

But the loan fund hasn’t been able to keep up with all of the former Kamlaris who want to start a business, and there are hundreds of eager young women on the co-op loan waiting list.

Thanks to supporters like you, we raised over $20,000 during the month of June for the Freedom Loan Fund Campaign. This means that more than 70 former child slaves in Nepal will have the opportunity to start a business and make a new life.

It’s not too late to make a difference. Join the Freedom Loan Fund Campaign today and be a part of this amazing transformation!

Meet some of the freed Kamlari business co-op members:

Mina, beauty salon owner After Mina was rescued from Kamlari, she entered our special program to make up the schooling she had missed. She graduated high school and went on to beautician training in vocational school. Mina opened her own salon with a co-op loan, and now offers haircuts, facials and more — and earns up to 1,000 rupees a day. And she’s still in college, working towards a health degree.  

Kamala, motorcycle repair shop  She may be the only female motorcycle mechanic in Nepal! Kamala spent seven years as a Kamlari, working under terrible conditions. NYF rescued her in 2004 and put her through school and vocational training. With a loan from the co-op, Kamala started her business fixing motorcycles and selling parts. Now she brings in 5,000 rupees a day (good money there) and employees two men.

Asmita, vegetable farmer A Kamlari for five years before NYF rescued her, Asmita now tills her own fields with her family by her side. “Before we had to work in other people’s houses,” she said. “Now we work our own land.” After high school, NYF sponsored Asmita in an agricultural training program, and then she started her farm with a co-op loan. She’s also trained 40 other former Kamlari in farming to help ensure their independence.

Learn more about NYF’s programs and how you can make a difference in Nepal.

Learn more:

Watch the ABC7 News video about NYF’s work to free girls from slavery.

Read about our Empowering Freed Kamlari Program.

NYF news: Victory! Kamlari Child Slavery System Ends.

Students raise big money for NYF!

As new members of Girls Learn at Marin Horizon School in Mill Valley, CA, Nina Kissinger, Vivien Manning and Hannah Platter searched for a project that reflected the club’s mission — promoting education and empowerment for girls.

They found it in NYF, which has freed more than 12,000 girls from bonded servitude and is now helping them start new lives.

The entire school community rallied behind them. For the past three years, the girls sold used books and home-baked cookies, babysat at the school’s Parents Night Out, and sweetened Valentine’s Day with candy grams, raising about $2,500 last year alone to help educate these freed Nepali girls.

The girls matched that amount this year, plus the school donated the proceeds from its Read-A-Thon.

Nina, Vivien and Hannah presented Olga with a check for $9,110 at our Founder’s Day event last week, money they hope will help girls freed from Kamlari to find their place in the world.

“We’ve been committed to NYF’s work since 6th grade,” Nina said. “We hope to carry it on when we head off to high school next year.

Many thanks to Marin Horizon School and Girls Learn for caring about the girls of Nepal!

Ankur Counseling Center helps kids heal

In a country where talking about mental health is taboo, Chhori Maharjan has started a new dialog. As director of NYF’s Ankur Counseling Center (ACC) — the only psychological services clinic for children and adolescents in Nepal — Chhori is proud of the center’s role in changing attitudes towards mental health.

We spoke with Chhori in a recent interview in her office in Kathmandu. She talked about changing the way people think about mental health and about the center’s pioneering work with children and young adults.

Making mental health services normal
“In Nepal, everyone thinks that counseling is only for psychotic people,” Chhori explained. “We have worked really hard to help people understand that counseling can help everyone. We make counseling easy and accessible for our children and youth. We let them know that it is OK to talk about and share their feelings. This is what we are changing.”

The center has treated more than 4,000 children and young adults since it opened in 2006. Some children have suffered unspeakable trauma, and have found healing through Ankur’s use of innovative sand play therapies and other child-friendly techniques.

“We are a pioneer of children’s counseling because we are using therapies that work for children,” Chhori said. “Children don’t really have words to explain their experiences, thoughts and emotions. We encourage our children to express themselves through play therapy.”

Chhori explained the counseling center’s holistic approach to caring for the children in our programs. In addition to food, shelter and education, many of these children need help rebuilding their lives and are learning to write new stories for themselves.

ACC: A pioneering training center
The Ankur Counseling Center has also become a leader in providing innovative training programs in Nepal for adults who care for or work with children. This is part of ACC’s mission to create a healthy, child-friendly environment in schools, homes, child care institutions and throughout the community.

ACC staff and guest instructors also provide training to increase the knowledge and skill of professionals and paraprofessionals in the field of psychology. Participants come from throughout Nepal to attend ACC trainings, and more than 2,600 people have experienced the trainings so far.

“NYF realized that it is not enough to provide counseling assistance for children. We also need to train the people who work with children,” Chhori said. “That’s how we can make a substantial difference.”

Learn more:

Read about the Ankur Counseling Center.

Vocational training is working!

Nearly half of all Nepalis are unemployed, even those with college degrees. Yet workers like plumbers and electricians are often recruited from neighboring countries because most young people in Nepal lack training in these and other skilled jobs.

Unfortunately, vocational counseling and training is severely lacking in Nepal, and without this kind of support many young people languish in unemployment and poverty.

But our Vocational Education and Career Counseling Program (VECC) is helping to change that. VECC has trained hundreds of electricians, plumbers, hairdressers, computer technicians, midwives, auto-mechanics and cooks since the program began in 2007 — and more than 80% of our graduates are now employed.

Talent, training and big dreams
Amrita will begin a career as an electrical engineer after she completes her training at Balaju Technical School in Kathmandu. The 15-year-old passed the challenging School Leaving Certificate (SLC) exam, required of all Nepali students to graduate from high school, and won a coveted spot in the vocational program.

Amrita entered her training with an eagerness to learn and a big dream — she wants to solve Nepal’s chronic power shortage by building more hydro-electric power systems.

Full service: counseling, assessment and training
Last year, we provided career counseling services to 1,200 young people and enrolled 475 youth in both short and long-term training programs.

Before starting any course of training, students take a series of interest and aptitude assessments. VECC staff work with each student to help them decide whether to pursue higher education or vocational training for a particular career path. Our staff has conducted extensive research throughout Nepal to identify vocational courses that provide high quality training and have proven success in placing young people in satisfying jobs.

VECC staff then identify the best training program for each student’s chosen field, pays for the cost of training, and helps them to find jobs. In some cases, VECC provides graduates with support for starting a small business of their own.

Growing a farm…and more farmers
Asmita was sent away from her family and spent five years of her childhood working as a Kamlari indentured servant before NYF rescued her in 2004. After high school, we sponsored Asmita in an agricultural training program, and then she started her own farm with a loan from the freed Kamlari business co-op. Now Asmita tills the fields with her family by her side. She’s also trained 40 other former Kamlari in farming to help ensure their independence.

Getting a career, and babies, off to a good start
Renu learned a trade and is studying for a college degree while she works. Smart and hardworking, she received an NYF scholarship and finished high school, passing the SLC exam. Renu then completed the 18-month Auxiliary Nurse Midwife training program.

Now she earns 15,000 rupees ($150) a month (good money in this impoverished country) helping to deliver babies at a small clinic in Western Nepal. But Renu still has larger ambitions, and so she continues in college working towards a bachelor’s degree.

Thanks in large part to the generosity of our NYF supporters, the VECC program is proving to be a highly effective means of putting impoverished youth on a track for life-long success.

Learn more:

Read about our Vocation Education and Career Counseling program.