When I was in Kerala, my friend Natasha met a girl who was also travelling around Kerala and was coming to Kathmandu to volunteer on a woman’s project. She thought we might like to meet and she gave me her email. So I mailed her. We didn’t manage to cross paths in Kerala but were due to be in Kathmandu around the same time so arranged to meet the first week I was here (it was a busy week!).
Lisa is a lovely Aussie girl who was volunteering with the Tulsi Meher Ashram through a connection with the Australian New Internationalist. There is a store, Mahaguthi Crafts,that sells fair trade handicrafts made by Nepali women and funds a portion of the Ashram through their sales. The ashram is a refuge and training centre, teaching the girls how to sew and make handicrafts. The women are all ‘disadvantaged’ – divorced, widowed or destitute. These are all conditions that leave women very little option in this society. There were about 30 women living in the ashram, mostly between 18-25 with a handful in their 30s and 40s. Up until this year it was a two year program but they’ve just expanded the space to accommodate more women and have now cut the program to one year.
The women receive training in sewing, weaving and handicrafts. They tend their own kitchen gardens and
live communally, all doing the chores around the ashram. They are given food and lodging as well as the training. As she explained more to me, again, my interest was more than piqued and we arranged that I would come back to the Ashram a few days later to check it out.
Lisa is the first volunteer that the ashram has ever had. She had very simple quarters and lived on the same schedule as the women, getting up very early, helping in the kitchen and then working in the office with Prem Lamichhane, the director of the programme, assisting with rewriting their promotional materials and other administrative tasks.
She was so inspired by the women that she really wanted to do something for them as they were about to leave to hopefully start a new life. This round of women were at the end of their program, ‘graduating’ this spring. She thought if they each had their own sewing machines, when they went back to their villages they would immediately be able to earn a living with their newfound skills. So she sent a mail out to her friends and family back in Australia to see if she could raise enough money to buy each woman a sewing machine. Impressively enough, she raised $3300 Australian dollars in just a week or so and gathered enough funds to not only buy enough sewing machines, but even a few extra as well as some equipment and utensils for the kitchen, blankets and a desk for the office.
The ashram was so grateful to her that they arranged a thank you ceremony and I offered to come and film it for her. It was a sweet ceremony (in Nepali with bits translated for Lisa’s benefit). All the women were there along with the various people who run the ashram and board of directors. They were clearly (understandably) so grateful to Lisa for what she had done for them and presented her with garlands and gifts.
What was most moving was the reaction of all the women who had become incredibly attached to her 
over the few weeks that she had immersed herself in their lives. This ceremony came at the end of her stay there, so it also signified her departure. As the ceremony drew to a close, and she went around hugging the girls, floods of tears broke out in all directions. It was so moving that soon I was also welling up (how unlike me!), as these women were probably as upset that she was leaving them as they were grateful for what she had done for them. In the short time she had been there she had become such a huge addition to their lives, they clearly felt deeply for her. It was such an inspiration to see.
This is another example of a project having real and positive effects, changing the course of lives for a few women who may not have had much hope prior. Again, this theme of empowering women by teaching them the skills to support themselves, giving them the encouragement to hold their heads up with pride, creating hope for a positive future. Of course, this is just the beginning for these 30 women who have now left the ashram. We don’t know what the future holds for them, but at least it they have some hope, some skills and a sewing machine!
No comments:
Post a Comment