Najani Starts School!

I just wanted to quickly share a real feel-good story that Bec and I have been lucky to be a part of…

About 4 years ago through a good friend here, we met a women who was living on the streets of Thamel, the main tourist area in Kathmandu. She had just the week before given birth prematurely to a daughter, Najani. As she did not have enough to even feed herself the daughter quickly became malnourished and was rapidly deteriorating towards death. Fortunately our friend had realised the severity of the situation and took the woman and newborn to a nutritional centre set up to deal with this type of case. It was on a visit to this centre with our friend that we met the woman and her daughter for the first time. Whilst the girl’s condition did not look good she had improved and the doctors were reasonably confident that she would survive.

Well she did survive and she and her mother were taken in by Sabilla, a woman who is a bit of a grandmother to many of the street people and beggars of Thamel. Most tourists would know Sabilla as she is one of the most persistent sellers of little hand bags there is! Sabilla herself can only manage a small room to live in but she was happy to share this with Najani and her mum and over the past few years we have watched them become a sort of family. Najani’s mum continued to beg on the streets but with Sabilla’s help she has done well and Najani has thrived.

We subsequently learned that Najani was most probably the result of her mother being raped by her father, which lead to her fleeing the Tarai area in southern Nepal to beg on the streets of Thamel. The father is no longer in the picture which is good news as Najani’s mum understands the importance of family planning and so shouldn’t get herself into this predicament in the future. Still, this situation is a common one and again highlights the importance of education as studies have shown there is a direct correlation between literacy, basic education and smaller family sizes and pregnancies that are more planned for.

A very exciting day arrived yesterday when I took Najani, her mum and Sabilla to the boarding school where Najani would be living and studying! Although she is only 4 years old it is much better for her to be living in a school hostel environment than begging on the streets of Thamel with her mum. The hostel she will be living in has only 20 children so she will be well looked after. Also, one of Sabilla’s young sons stays there and he has become a big brother to Najani and will take good care of her. Having Najani stay in the hostel also relieves some of the pressure on her mother in terms of worrying about feeding her etc.

Although this is the story of the life of only one girl that has been changed forever, it has been amazing to watch it unfold literally from the beginning and exciting to think that we will be able to follow Najani’s journey into a future of exciting possibilities.