Meet Tulasha - recipient of the first Roshani's Award

Roshani

In March 2014, the children of Nepal got a new angel to watch over them. Roshani Balika died at Bal Mandir, Naxal, aged 4. Roshani was a gorgeous, energetic, inquisitive young lady who unfortunately had a minor mental disability which meant she was treated differently. We were not able to protect Roshani but we vowed to ensure that her spirit lived on and that her death was not meaningless.

Roshani's Award

In Roshani’s memory, Mitrataa created “Roshani’s Award”. This scholarship would be awarded to a very special young woman who had faced discrimination due to her disabilities. When we met Tulasha Poudel in her village in a remote part of Dolakha, we knew she was the perfect recipient for the first Roshani’s Award.

Meet Tulasha

Tulasha has Down’s Syndrome. She is approximately 20 years old. Her mother and sister were killed when she was about 6 years old when their house collapsed in a landslide. Her father is hearing impaired and cannot care for her. She lived with her neighbour and just sat idle at home with no support, interactions or care.

We spoke with Tulasha’s father and the community and discussed the possibility of bringing Tulasha to Kathmandu to teach her some life skills and independence so she can take care of herself in future. They agreed.

Tulasha visits Kathmandu

Initially, we brought Tulasha to Kathmandu in April 2014 for a health check-up and to see how she liked it. She came with her uncle and father. After a successful health check-up, we gave her a bath, bought her some new clothes and gave her some good meals. We sent them back to the village while we worked on a solution for accommodation and support in Kathmandu.

In May 2014, Pushpa and Asbini went back to Dolakha to check on Tulasha. The village’s attitude towards her had changed and they were now caring for her more actively although she still needed a lot more care and teaching to become independent.

Finding a solution for Tulasha in Kathmandu

Tulasha with Bec and Ranju

We needed to find a supportive, caring and creative environment for Tulasha in Kathmandu to achieve the aims of her scholarship – independence for her in future. We explored options in hostels in Special Needs Schools and in the Downs Syndrome Society of Nepal. Unfortunately, we were not confident in their ability to be able to deliver our stretching objectives.

This process took a long time but became particularly urgent after the earthquake in April 2015 when Tulasha’s house was destroyed and her family had nothing left. We finally found the perfect solution – one of our Mitrataa girl’s mother was looking for a job and she is a natural working with disabled students. Her house had collapsed in the earthquake and she had nowhere to stay with her 2 young children and no job. We organised a new room for her to live in and offered to pay her rent and a salary if she would take care of Tulasha and teach her the skills she needed to move towards independence. We are very grateful that Babita agreed and Ashwini went to Dolakha to bring Tulasha to Kathmandu. She will visit her family in Dolakha a few times a year to maintain contact with them and ensure she can return to her community in future.

Tulasha’s journey towards independence begins

Three months have passed and Tulasha has settled in incredibly well with Babita and her family. She has learned to bath herself, wash her dishes and her clothes, to say her name and where she is from as well as to greet people.

People with Down’s Syndrome are generally left in a corner of a home with no support or opportunities in Nepal. Disabilities here are not well understood or respected and Tulasha has been great at teaching people that she has wonderful passion for life, an ability to learn and a huge heart. Not only has she learned a lot, but she has taught all members of the Mitrataa family about tolerance and understanding and we have already seen this message being passed on to others in the extended Mitrataa family.

The road towards independence for Tulasha is long and full of twists and turns. But she has started her journey and embraced it completely. With Babita by her side, we are confident that in a few years, Tulasha will be able to live independently with a support network around her.

Huge thanks to Ashwini, Bandana, and of course Babita for their support and passion for Tulasha. We know that Roshani would be smiling knowing that her memory lives on and has given Tulasha the opportunity for a better future.

Dream Catchers Scholarships Monthly Meeting - Bringing girls together

Introductions of new friends

I love our monthly Dream Catchers Meetings. The energy of having the girls together and sharing their stories, dramas, learnings, always inspires me. This month’s meeting was extra special for several reasons. 

Generally, we hold 2 separate meetings – one for our Kathmandu Dream Catchers (college scholarships) and one for our Bhaktapur, Panauti and Sanga group. Each month, we cover a different theme – leadership, cheer squads of support, cybercrime and online safely have been our recent topics. The girls prepare and lead the meetings. This month we decided to do something different. We combined both groups of girls for a total of around 50 and held our meeting at Riviera, our model school. It was great to see the 2 groups getting to know each other and expanding their support networks. 



Sorting values, projects and team details

The topic was Mitrataa. The girls decided that they needed to improve their knowledge of Mitrataa’s values, history and activities. We explored Mitrataa’s beginnings in 2000, our projects along the way which gave the girls an opportunity to share their experiences with Mitrataa since they have all come to this group through different projects and journeys – the Project Snow Leopard photography group, the Riviera group, the Passion for Life group, Rabindra’s group, the ex-Bal Mandir group. We then discussed Mitrataa’s Values and our Dream Recipe which underpins all of the work we do.
For me, it was the first monthly meeting I have attended since returning to Nepal so I loved catching up with all the girls, seeing how much they have grown over the last few months. Sharing more of Mitrataa’s history with the girls was also an opportunity to celebrate their progress over the last several years. We celebrated Sangita who was one of our first scholarship girls under our new programs in 2007. Back then, she was a shy class 6 student. Now she is a very confident class 12 Travel and Tourism student with big dreams. We celebrated the Passion for Life girls who were in our first batch of Dream Centre girls in Baneshwor and are now in class 11 at Texas College. We celebrated Ashmita’s progress from government school in Panauti to top of her class in class 9 at an English medium school. 



Sangita sharing her journey with Mitrataa

Each girl has an amazing story. Knowing that Mitrataa has played a small role in their stories and their confidence gave me a very warm fuzzy feeling. I am really proud of them and grateful for the opportunity to be a part of their lives. Every single one of them is amazing and I can’t wait to see where their dreams take them.


Ashmita - first in her class in class 9



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

 

 

CSU students get the opportunity to practise their flexibility!

Sabitri arguing in favour of tourism

We are very excited to have our second group of CSU students here, continuing our partnership with CSU this year. There are 10 students completing some practical training with Mitrataa for a month. They are accompanied again this year by Trisha Poole and we are very happy to have her back in Kathmandu.

The group was due to start teaching at Riviera, our model school, this week but unfortunately they arrived at the beginning of 10 days of strikes in the lead up to the election here. We had warned them to bring their flexibility and their senses of humour and they have had lots of opportunities to practise both!

Since Riviera was closed due to the strike, the group worked at our hostel, running a debating training and competition for the senior girls and some English reading and grammar and maths for the younger children. Some of the group also spent some time with class 10 at Riviera since they live on the school campus.



Preparing rebuttal!

The children have learned so much and I was incredibly proud of them during the debate competition on Friday on the topic, "Tourism is good for Nepal". We have some definite talent in our group. Thanks to the CSU group for their coaching and training, especially to Rohan for teaching them the skills of a great debate..



We look forward to the rest of their time here, with some time at Riviera and a few more days at the hostel. We really love our partnership with CSU and hope to continue to grow and expand it in future.


The debaters with their coaches from CSU