Have you ever travelled to a country where you don't speak the language? That uncertain feeling is what millions of illiterate people feel every day. At home.

The Mitrataa gang celebrates Literacy Day

Have you ever travelled to a foreign country where you don’t speak the language, can’t read the signs, can’t order food because you have no idea what menus say? For the millions of illiterate people around the world, that feeling of fear, being out of control, lack of trust and incompetence, accompanies them every day of their lives, in everything they do, like a shadow they cannot shake.  
For me, literacy is about freedom. That’s why Mitrataa focuses on it. One of our women described it best – literacy is like “suddenly having a cloud lifted and seeing the sunshine. Now I no longer have to have such a good memory and be so tricky to hide my illiteracy. Now I can hold my head high in the community and stand up for my rights because I can sign my name instead of with my thumb print. And now people can’t rip me off because I can count money and I can read signs.”

 

Sabitri pledges to read

To celebrate International Literacy Day, Mitrataa teamed up with one of our favourite partners, John Wiley & Sons, to challenge the Wiley staff to pledge to read for 890 hours and the Mitrataa girls to pledge to read for 89 minutes each to celebrate their literacy. The girls also explored the impact of illiteracy in their community in Nepal.

 

Thank you to Wiley for their wonderful support and to all of our generous supporters who allowed us to give the gift of literacy to the girls and women of Nepal.

To donate, please visit our website – www.mitrataa.org.

Junu's story of the impact of illiteracy - click to read

Our personal Cheer Squads

With the World Cup final around the corner and Nepal transfixed, we decided it was a good opportunity to talk to the girls in our network about the huge power of our own personal Cheer Squads - those we can turn to when life throws us challenges.

During our monthly meeting with our girls from Bhaktapur, Panauti and Sanga, spent some time talking about the very high rate of suicides amongst young people, especially girls, in Nepal at the moment. This week alone we heard of a girl committing suicide over a fight with her boyfriend, another because she didn't get into the college she had been trying for (as her SLC result was 79.5% and not a distinction of 80%) and another because Brazil lost in the semi-finals of the World Cup.

 

There is a pervading feeling of hopelessness amongst many teenage girls here at the moment and we wanted to remind our girls that they have a HUGE network of people who believe in them. They each drew their own Cheer Squad Maps, to stick up at home and remind them that they have people they can talk to when life gets challenging, or simply when they have a bad day. We then role-played how to give advice to an upset friend.

We challenged each of them to ask 3 people tomorrow - Are you OK? Sometimes, that's all it takes to give someone hope or the courage to reach out.

 

Mitrataa is all about friendship and the power of networks. If all of the girls in our networks reach out to 3 people, we can try to turn the helplessness into a circle of support.

 

Thank you to the girls for their participation! Keep dreaming and don't forget to believe in yourselves!

Democracy Debates – St Catherine’s spends time with Riviera

Is ‘democracy’ different in practice in Australia and Nepal? Is it perceived differently? And how does an election work anyway?

Performing their "I feel" poems

These were some of the questions explored by class 10 at Riviera, our model school, and a group of visiting girls from St Catherine’s in Sydney. We began with an afternoon of activities to get to know each other, including the groups writing a poem titled “I feel” and performing them for the rest of us.

After Republic Day celebrations in Nepal, the visitors then returned to Riviera for a full day of democracy exploration. The morning began with considering some general questions about democracy and constitutions, including definitions and advantages and limitations. It was interesting to see the similarities between what Australian students learn and Nepali lessons on these crucial concepts – notions of human rights, respect, civil engagement. But there were also some interesting differences, particular in relation to the way government representatives should be elected and how a constitution is drafted. In Nepal, the constitution is in the hands of the government alone contrasted with the right of citizens to vote on any changes to the constitution in Australia.


Australia v Nepal - Democracy in practice

We then moved in to exploring democracy in practice, considering questions such how democracy represents minority groups and what 1 change the students would make to their constitution if they could. Both the visitors from Australia and the Riviera students had some good questions for their other group members and there were some very interesting conversations.

 

It was then time to experience democracy with a mock election for “Nepaust” – the groups had to launch a campaign and then vote with a very closely contested election going right down to 5^th preferences. 

Counting the votes in the Nepaust Elections



The day finished with a thank you presentation from the Riviera principal, Prajwal Koirala, and his team.

 

And the winner is . . . .

A week later, Riviera held their elections for school captain and vice captains, enabling class 10 to put into practice the skills they learned with St Catherine's. It also gave them the chance to share their learnings with the rest of the school as they got the opportunity to exercise their right to vote for their student representatives.

Sujata casts her vote

 

Salik, Riviera's new school captain

St Catherine’s has been working with Mitrataa for 5 years now, sending a group of volunteers to work with our Dream Centres, sharing life skills lessons and ideas. Due to the limited English of the girls in the Dream Centres, these interactions have been engaging but restricted in terms of sharing and learning. This year was the first time they have worked with Riviera and it was great to see some debates and deeper discussions being shared amongst the students. It always amazes me the similarities between teenagers across the globe – particularly where music choices are concerned!

 

Thanks as always to Sarah Hatch, who leads the fundraising efforts at St Catherine’s and who leads the group to Nepal each year. It is always a pleasure working with you, Sarah. Thanks also to the teams at Riviera and Mitrataa who helped to prepare for the workshops.

 



Sarah Hatch receives a thank you from Nirmala

Sharing our gifts with the world!



Simon (left) and Chitiz showing their passion for dance

As you know, at Mitrataa we believe every single one of us has a gift to offer the world – we just have to find it, practise it (not such a challenge when it is something we enjoy doing!) and work out how to share it to inspire others.  

 

With the children we work with in Nepal, we work with them to identify their gifts, passions and strengths, and then we build on these. Simon for example, is a natural dancer. It is his way of expressing himself and he does it beautifully. Sabitri has the most incredible voice. It is a privilege to listen to her sing (unfortunately her current favourite songs are all One Direction!). Rebina loves to draw and can often be found sketching. Each child is different – but each has a gift. Once we identify these gifts, encouraging the children to develop these gifts also provides motivation for them with their studies and dealing with other challenges in life. It builds their resilience and their confidence.

 

Sabitri opens her heart through her singing

The same principle applies with fundraising, which is why we set our supporters our Passion Challenge – to use your passion or strengths to raise money for Mitrataa, and build your resilience and confidence at the same time. This is exactly what Aidan has been doing. He will be visiting us in Nepal in March with his father, Myron. Aidan is a passionate 14-year old basketballer. So what better way to raise money than to shoot hoops? And so he set himself a challenge – he would shoot one hoop for each dollar donated to Mitrataa. He has already exceeded his target of $1,000 and is preparing to shoot his 1,000 hoops soon. But let’s challenge him to shoot even more – there is still time to donate and raise his total. You can donate online at:

https://give.everydayhero.com/au/shooting-hoops-for-mitrataa

 

 

 

So what are you doing to discover your special gift, your talents, strengths and passions? Don’t keep them to yourselves. Share them with the world. And if you need an excuse, you can take our Passion Challenge and raise money for us at the same time, exactly as Aidan has. Have fun! And thanks so much, Aidan. Can’t wait to have you with us here in a few months!

 

Aidan practises for his "Shooting Hoops for Mitrataa" Passion Challenge