Monthly Archives: September 2015

Binita Rana is from Dubiya VDC-7, Kapilvastu, 75 KM away (west) of PNL. Her father died when she was 8 years old and her mother married with another person and living apart from Binita and her brother. When her grandparents did not care for her, she started living with her maternal uncle and aunty in a joint family of 9 members. They have mud house with two rooms built in a non-registered land near by the jungle. They have some goats. Binita’s uncle and aunt work as daily wage laborers in the village and uncle also goes to India for better earning for few months every year. Binita stopped going to school 3 years ago when she was studying in grade two. She used to look after the goats and collect firewood from nearby jungle. Binita is now 12 years old suffering from bilateral congenital Talipus Equino Virus causing rigid deformity by birth. In December 2013 the UMN during their community development work they met Binita and referred to PNL for treatment. PNL started her treatment by visiting her at home. We found that she is very keen to continue her studies but her uncle and aunt were not interested…

I am Maharani Chaudhary and I am 45 years old. I live in Saurahiya, Motipur VDC with my children. My daughters are married and son is working in Pokhara as daily wage labor. My husband did not care for me nor did he look after the children. He lived apart from the family and died 6 month ago. Due to our local cultural barriers, I did not get opportunity to go to school for study in my early childhood. I was married at the age of 15 which was a normal tradition in our community at that time. My husband never loved and gave me care as his wife. So we decided to live apart but I lived with my children and brought them up with many years of struggle while our main source of winning bread was working on daily wage labor. My life passed by with enormous of problems. I was very fortunate to come in contact with PNL three years ago. PNL conducted a survey in my village and they set up a SHG with the name of Manakamana and I was given the responsibility of Chairperson. Our group consists of mostly poor and marginalized people. Now…

Gonaha Village Development Committee (VDC) holds a total of 8,250 people in which Madhesi is the main ethnic group. In an assessment Partnership for New Life (PNL) found 3,292 people illiterate in this DVC. So, PNL planned to organize literacy classes for all Self-Help Groups (SHG) in Gonaha. So, we visited District Education Office (DEO) and explained the about the literacy situation in Gonaha and requested for supply of books required for literacy classes. DEO was quite hesitant for supplying us books because the literacy class run by Community Learning Centre and government schools were not successful in the past. They asked for official permission from the VDC office with a condition that there should be adequate literacy classes, not just a few sessions as it happened in the past. PNL called a mass meeting having key members of VDC. Most of them threw challenge to PNL that it is impossible to achieve success to make 3,292 people literate and declare a literate VDC. They also shared about previous literacy classes which never been successful in this VDC and warned us not to put your hand into the fire. We simply asked them a question that somebody has to work…

Leaders of SHG Participating in Leadership Training and Cleaning Water Source (deep well) by SHG member Practical Work During Vegetable Farming Training