After her divorce, relatives refused to help. Now Kamu Sunar is the one people come to for help and advice.
A little boy comes to Kamu Sunar’s shop. He chooses a chocolate bar and hands over the money. He has already turned to leave when Sunar reminds him to take the change with him.
Kamu Sunar’s shop takes up one room in a two-storey stone building on the narrow main street of the village of Bhardeu. The shop sells a variety of items from soap and bracelets to shoes and petrol. The small village of Bhardeu is located in a verdant valley right in the middle of Nepal.
Sunar is a Dalit, or an outcaste, as well as an entrepreneur and a single mother. Now, she is also a municipal councillor on the Nepalese rural municipal council Gaupalika, meaning she gets to participate in local decision-making.
For several years, a women’s cooperative supported by the Finn Church Aid volunteer network Women’s Bank has operated in Sunar’s home village. The women who belong to it have received education and support for e.g. saving and agriculture as well as starting their own small businesses. The members of the cooperative have improved their financial and social position, but according to the women, equally important has been an improvement in self-esteem, team spirit within the group, and support from others.
And when a municipal election was held in Nepal, the women of Bhardeu decided to join forces. They voted for Kamu Sunar, a respected member of the group who had a slightly better chance of being elected, thanks to a Dalit quota. When she was elected, it was a victory for all of them.
In politics, Sunar wants to promote the financial and mental empowerment of women. In Nepal, the situation of women is still poor, and not everyone thinks rights such as ownership rights and financial power of decision belong to women just like they do to men.
Went to school in secret, married young
Remote Bhardeu has not always been home for Kamu Sunar. Her childhood was spent in the capital Kathmandu where her parents had a goldsmith shop. Her childhood as the eldest daughter of a family with five children was a happy one.
”I went to school for five years. After that, my parents wanted me to help my mother at home and my father at the shop. Even as a child, I was strong-willed. I was very interested in mathematics. I tried continuing to go to school in secret, but when my parents found out, I got a beating, and I had to drop out of school.”
Kamu Sunar sighs. Now comes the most painful part of her story.
A young man visited the goldsmith shop.
”I was 15 years old when we met, and he was six years older than me. We married for love.”
A couple of decades ago, love matches were much less common in Nepal than they are today. The newlyweds moved to the groom’s home village of Bhardeu. They were happy together for ten years.
”Then he found someone else. I don’t want to talk about it any more than this. He betrayed me. I don’t want to think about him,” says Sunar.
”No, I definitely never intend to marry again, because I don’t want that to happen to me again.”
When her husband left her, Sunar and her young children, a girl and a boy, were left destitute. The family of the husband did not want to help them.
”My children gave me courage. I didn’t want them to suffer.”
”Mom is kind-hearted and funny”
Being a member of the women’s cooperative helped Sunar rearrange her life. Little by little, Sunar acquired both skills and capital. She got a loan of 15,000 Nepalese rupees (110 euros) to start her own shop. Having her own shop had been a lifelong dream.
The shop was a success. Both of her children got the chance to stay in school for as long as they would like.
We close the shop for a while and go see Kamu Sunar’s construction site. She is about to fulfil another dream, a home of her own. Her time living in her ex-husband’s brother’s house is coming to an end. The house is not even safe, because it was damaged in the powerful earthquakes of 2015.
Sunar’s small plot of land is within walking distance of the shop in this beautiful valley in which the village is located. Houses are scattered few and far between in the valley, surrounded by meadows and terraced maize and mustard fields. In this country known for its snowy peaks, the tall green hills surrounding the valley cannot be called mountains.
At the plot, Sunar’s daughter and a friend are working in the heat of the sun, crushing rocks. You can also buy crushed rock, but it is cheaper to make your own.
Soon there will be a small house on the plot that belongs to no one but Sunar. It feels wonderful.
Tomorrow, 14-year-old daughter Amrita can leave crushing rocks behind and gets to go to school, as the school year starts.
”Amrita is stronger than I am. She talks a lot and has lots of suggestions,” says Sunar.
Amrita is interested in a career as a volleyball player. ”She gets to choose herself,” Sunar assures us. Her 18-year-old son Amit works in a goldsmith shop in Kathmandu, but often visits his mother and sister.
”Mom is kind-hearted and funny. And a little strict. Mom used to be very quiet, but not anymore. I’m really pround of her being on the council,” says Amrita.
Work on behalf of women
Outcaste people still face many kinds of discrimination in Nepal.
”I’ve suffered a lot because I’m outcaste. But I have learned a lot as well. I’m here now because I have had so much support,” says Sunar.
According to Sunar, all members of the council are like one big family.
”We dine together and help each other. There is no discrimination there.”
Sunar knows from experience exactly what kind of skills a woman needs in order to improve her situation in society. She is now in a position to give advice and help others.
Being on the council only pays a small fee, and the 460 municipal councils of an impoverished country do not have a great deal of funds to hand out for local development. 18 percent of the funds are especially reserved for supporting women. This is better than nothing at all.
”My mind used to be empty. Now I have lots of knowledge, skills and ideas,” describes Sunar.
Savitri Devi Mandal welcomes us into her home. We sit in a small courtyard surrounded by rooms. Mandal’s sari is vibrantly colourful. Her silver jewellery, part of the local culture, speak of her position as a married woman.
”I am very happy now, especially when working in our restaurant,” she says.
Mandal, 39, lives with her husband, her mother-in-law and her four children in the village of Gonarpura in the Terai region in southeast Nepal. In recent years, the life of the family has taken a major turn for the better.
Life in Gonarpura today is much the same as it has been for hundreds of years. The beautiful houses by the banks of the river are made of a mixture of clay and concrete. The corners of the houses are soft and round, their roofs are made of straw, and no cars would fit to drive on the narrow sand paths between the houses – not that anyone has a car here. Water comes from the well. Big haystacks in the field in front of the village provide food for the cows. Chicken and goats populate the yards.
The region is beautiful but poor. Terai is an underdeveloped region even on the scale of impoverished Nepal.
Savitri and Sankar are cooking, joined by son Saudi. Meat is not part of the restaurant’s menu, because it is too expensive.
Visibly proud, Mandal goes inside into one of the rooms for a gas cylinder and a small gas stove she got as entrepreneurial support that she drags out to show us. They helped her and her husband Sankar to start a ”restaurant.” They prepare and sell food at a small marketplace next to the village by a bridge crossing the river.
Something has changed in the village over the past few years – for the better. Finn Church Aid’s livelihood project has provided women with education and support for agriculture and small-scale entrepreneur activities, for example in the form of a cow or a sewing machine. New skills have brought wellbeing and decreased work migration to neighbouring country India.
”Forget about the dowry!”
”Now we can work together. My husband doesn’t have to leave home to look for work. We all have proper clothes. We are even able to put money away for saving. Our children are all in school, and we can afford to pay for school supplies and remedial education,” says Mandal, herself illiterate.
”Don’t save for the dowry yet, keep your daughter in school for as long as she wants to! It’s going to be long before she needs to marry,” advises Finn Church Aid’s project coordinator Arati Rayamajhi, when Mandal says her only concern is her daughter’s dowry. Daughter Laxmi is 13 years old.
Restaurant open every night
Savitri Devi and Sankar Mandal’s restaurant opens at four in the afternoon. 14-year-old son Chanchal transports the gas cylinder and stove to the marketplace with a push cart. Savitri and Sankar sit behind the stove, next to each other.
There are eggs on the table to make an omelette, with onions, tomatoes and chilli chopped as fillings.
They sit here every day until nine in the evening. ”However, I feel energised in the morning, because I don’t have to worry about something all the time anymore,” says Savitri Devi Mandal.
Bunu Rai, 20, from Nepal, is training in Automobile Mechanics. There are very few female workers in the automobile industry in Nepal. But this is about to change.
“I want to change the perception of the society and the people. Women can do this work, even though it has been perceived to be only for men,” Bunu Rai says.
Finn Church Aid’s local partner organisation UCEP Nepal’s Sano Thimi Technical School in Bhaktapur near the capital Kathmandu has started to offer non-traditional vocational education for young women.
Rai has been learning a lot at the school and enjoyed her studies very much.
“When I’ve been studying and working with men, one thing I have learned is courage. I do not feel any awkwardness, I’m very happy. We students help each other.”
”Our society is patriarchal. I want change! I want women to be treated equally and have an equal place in the society.”
Rai says that in the past there was discrimination between daughters and sons in Nepali families. Often boys went to school and girls stayed home doing housework.
However, Rai’s parents always treated her and her sister and brother equally.
“My father used to work as a school helper. Perhaps he learned his good thinking partly from the school.”
At the Sano Thimi Technical School there are students from around the country, many living at the school hostel. Underprivileged youths such as youths from dalit or ex-bonder labour groups and youths from low economic background can get a scholarship for their studies.
After graduating, Bunu Rai wants to find a job or open her own workshop. In Sano Thimi, the training is followed by support to job placement or self-employment.
Finn Church Aid (FCA) carried out an internal audit in the late autumn of 2017. Some deficiencies were detected in the Nepal Country Office.
The process has not affected the financing, quality of programme work or efficiency of the operations. FCA’s professional and committed staff in Nepal will continue to implement FCA’s strategic goals and the country programme with quality.
FCA has recently started new large projects in Nepal with UNICEF and the EU, among others. These projects and the other programme work will continue in a normal manner. FCA and the Asian Development Bank are also planning cooperation.
The Country Director and the Finance Officer have resigned on January 18, 2018. A new Country Director and Finance Manager will recruited to Nepal Country Office as soon as possible.
More information: Director of International Cooperation Marja Jörgensen marja.jorgensen(at)kua.fi
Nowadays, more and more children get to go to school, but millions of children and young people are still left without skills needed in work.
Education is in crisis. This conclusion was reached by World Bank researchers as they wrote the 2018 World Development Report published in late September.
Giant leaps have been taken in the field of education over the past 200 years, and today, most children get to go to comprehensive school. However, merely going to school does not guarantee learning, the researchers write in the report.
In countries of low and medium income level, secondary education is completed by just one in three children. Over 60 percent of comprehensive school pupils in developing countries do not even learn basic skills in school. In countries of high income level, basic skills in e.g. mathematics are attained by nearly all pupils.
If skills learned in comprehensive school are weak, many are left lacking skills needed in work, such as basic skills in mathematics or in reading and writing.
“The report paints a disturbing picture of the magnitude of differences in the quality of education. Going to school does not guarantee learning. Without high-quality education, millions of young people are left without essential skills”, says Finn Church Aid Manager of Advocacy Katri Suomi.
“School should teach skills that help young people secure a job and lead a meaningful life. Education is key in preventing social exclusion and lifting people up from poverty.”
Teachers play a key part
If the children skip school, sometimes even the teachers do not show up. The report tells of surprise inspections to schools in seven African countries. On the day of the surprise visit, one out of five teachers was absent altogether, and two out of five teachers were somewhere other than in their own classroom, albeit in school. In rural areas, the situation is even worse.
If the teacher is present, his or her skills may be lacking. This is because the most talented pupils do not want to become teachers themselves. According to the report, in almost all countries, the 15-year-olds who want to become teachers receive lower-than-average results e.g. in PISA tests.
In a test conducted in 14 sub-Saharan countries, sixth-grade teachers received, on average, the same results as their best pupils.
In fact, training teachers is key in improving the quality of education.
“Training teachers is by far the most effective way to raise the quality of education. All of FCA’s education projects feature educating teachers as a key part”, says Suomi.
In 2016, FCA trained a total of 4,693 teachers in countries including Eritrea, the Central African Republic, and Nepal. Development work is conducted in cooperation with authorities in countries of operation to develop teacher training and e.g. school curricula.
More than 260 million children do not go to school
However, the biggest obstacle to learning by far is still not going to school at all. In 2016, more than 61 million children of comprehensive school age and as many as 202 million children of secondary school age did not go to school.
As many as one third of these children lived in fragile countries or in conflict zones. For example, in Syria, over 1,8 million children were left without education in 2013.
According to the report, among the first to be left outside school are those already in a vulnerable societal position because of gender, disability, caste, or belonging to a certain ethic group. Poverty is still one of the biggest obstacles to a child going to school.
The quality of education plays a part as well. If the quality of education is seen as poor, parents may not be ready to send their children to school, says the report.
“Especially in fragile countries and in catastrophes, education creates faith in the future and brings stability to everyday life. Lack of visions for the future drives people to look for better opportunities elsewhere, sometimes it drives young people to join extremist groups”, says Katri Suomi.
“Everybody benefits from investments made in education and in the quality of education. Education is important for societal development and for diminishing inequality.”
“I’m not worried about a new earthquake”, says 8-year-old Manjali Shah. “I know what to do.”
Two years ago, massive earthquakes in Nepal destroyed thousands of schools depriving one million children of a place of education. The almost one hundred-year-old school in Shah’s home village Bhimphed was severely damaged in the first earthquake at the end of April, and collapsed completely during an aftershock 17 days later.
Now, the Mahendar High School is operating normally, but instead of the old school building, teaching takes place in new barracks. Shah goes to fourth grade and uses fluent English to ask the Finnish visitors questions about their names and where they live.
3-4 year olds are learning numbers in English at Shree Bhrikuti Lower Secondary School, one of the schools which FCA has provided with safe school buildings.
“I want to become a teacher so I can share knowledge with others”, Shah says.
When the earthquake took place, Shah was home alone watching TV because her parents were out. She got out unharmed, but the house was heavily damaged. Shah and her family had no choice but to live outside for a month before they were able to return home.
School activities didn’t resume for six weeks after the earthquake. At first, many children didn’t show up for school, says Headmaster Ramji Yadav. Some didn’t know that school activities had resumed. Some feared aftershocks too much to come.
At first, regular teaching was set aside and instead everything in school was based on games and play.
“This was a way of encouraging children to come back to school. We had different fun activities and we didn’t give the children any homework. We also gave the children instructions on what to do during an earthquake.”
Children who attended classes told other children what they had learned about earthquake preparation. This built trust among the other children and three months after the earthquake most of the children were back in school.
334 concrete school buildings
First, temporary classrooms were constructed from bamboo and chicken wire. Then, construction began on semi-permanent structures with concrete walls. School staff is extremely happy with these new buildings.
The open field in from of the Mahendar High School is a children’s play field. It will be used as a gathering place in case of a new earthquake.
“We now have a place where the children can come to learn”, Yadav says with pride.
A single building has two classrooms, both of which can hold up to 40 pupils. Small children under 6 years old study around a low standing table, sitting on the floor. The bigger kids study sitting at desks.
The buildings are intended for temporary use for 15 to 20 years. The school in Bhimphed was the first one to have this particular type of semi-permanent school structures.
In total, Finn Church Aid constructs 334 similar semi-permanent school buildings to replace schools collapsed in the earthquakes. This makes FCA the second biggest international organization in Nepal to reconstruct earthquake damaged schools.
The schools now also have water and sanitation facilities like toilets and hand-washing stations. FCA staff has instructed locals on the maintenance of these sanitation facilities and the importance of personal hygiene.
School buildings create a sense of security
Shree Bhrikuti Lower Secondary School is located on a hillside on the outskirts of Thati Pokhari village. As you make the climb up the hill towards the school, around halfway up you hear sounds of rhythmic and upbeat recitation. One class is studying colours in English, and another is going through multiplication tables.
All construction materials for the new structures had to be carried up the hill by hand because there is no road leading up to the school. Before construction was finished, teaching was organised outside on a plaza which, on sunny days, becomes scorching hot. The plaza is where the old school building stood before it collapsed in the earthquake.
Headmaster Tara Jashi says the pupils are relieved to have safe school structures to study in. Teachers at the school have received training on how to prepare for natural disasters. After a couple days of training they are now planning small changes to the school facilities. They are clearly excited to be able to make the school an even safer environment for the children.
The school is important for the entire village community, and the school board has arrived in its entirety to welcome the Finnish visitors.
“By educating children we are helping them reach a good, comfortable and peaceful life”, Jashi says to emphasize the importance of education.
Text: Maija Lappalainen
Photos: Johanna Erjonsalo
FCA Humanitarian Aid and School Construction
28,878 people received Food and Non Food Items
2,000 Emergency Shelters
5 Child friendly spaces
556 Semi-permanent Latrines with Hand-washing Facilities 2,880 Educational and Recreational kits 1,750 receive Teacher Training in school-based Disaster Preparedness, Child-centered teaching 12,000 individuals were trained in Psychosocial Support
This year and next year, Finn Church Aid (FCA) constructs more transitional and semi-permanent learning centres with adequate water, sanitation and hygiene facilities in Nepal, extends its post-earthquake teacher training to new schools, and continues psychosocial support for teachers and children.
Devastating earthquakes hit Nepal on 24 April and 12 May 2015, destroying 770,000 homes, killing thousands and affecting millions. Four thousand schools were destroyed or damaged, keeping 1.2 million children out of classrooms.
After providing emergency relief, Finn Church Aid decided to concentrate its efforts on making it possible for children and youth to continue their studies. Within a couple of months after the earthquake, FCA had constructed temporary learning centres for nearly 20,000 students.
In 2016-2017, FCA builds 600 transitional classrooms in the districts of Makwanpur, Gorkha and Sindul with funding from UNICEF.
In remote areas of the Lalitpur district, FCA builds 40 semi-permanent (lifespan of 15-20 years) classrooms for schools which were not included in the reconstruction scheme of the Ministry of Education. FCA will also repair partially damaged, but structurally safe school buildings and tear down unsafe ones.
With the National Center for Education Development, Finn Church Aid is developing an activity package aiming to strengthen the cooperation between schools, families and communities in tackling post disaster child protection risks in Nepal. FCA is also cooperating with four secondary schools to develop an emergency school material kit especially aimed at high school-age students.
“FCA is bridging the gap between response and reconstruction to strengthen the overall quality of education, resilience and recovery at school and community level. The collective efforts of the government and NGOs fulfilled only 70 per cent of the need for temporary learning centres. Therefore, FCA continues to build additional transitional and semi-permanent learning centres”, says Finn Church Aid Nepal Country Manager Lila Bashyal.
Finn Church Aid extends its teacher training for post-earthquake recovery to new schools. The training is given in cooperation with Nepalese education authorities and gives teachers and pupils tools to manage their anxiety and identify when peer support is not enough and professional help is needed.
“FCA continues to provide psychosocial support, because even after one year of the massive earthquake, due to continued aftershocks, teachers report that earthquake survivor children are still traumatised with high levels of psychological and academic distress”, Mr Bashyal says.
The situation in the country remains severe, as people are still waiting for government support for rebuilding their homes and starting their livelihoods. Hundreds of thousands of Nepalese, who lost their homes in the earthquakes, are still living in temporary sheet metal shelters, and even in tents.
Further information: Lila Bashyal, FCA Country Manager for Nepal, email: lila.bashyal(at)kua.fi, Tel. +977 98 511 59 106
Merja Färm, Humanitarian Coordinator, email: merja.farm(at)kua.fi, Tel. +977 98101 35798
