Education & Empowerment for Musahar Girls in Nepal

Dear Supporter,

We are pleased to share an update on the progress of our work in support of marginalised Musahar girls in the Terai region of Nepal. 

Our team have continued to meet the basic needs of Musahar girls during the COVID-19 pandemic through provision of food assistance and essential hygiene packs to girls and their families.  

Activities suspended since March 2020 including literacy and numeracy classes and life skills support circles have now resumed. By adapting our methods of delivery from face-to-face sessions to remote sessions, we have resumed our vital work in strengthening the self-confidence, resilience and employability of girls.

Our team have piloted an innovative intervention that combines delivery methods of audio-assisted sessions, self-learning print packages, and phone sessions to develop foundational arithmetic and reading skills of girls participating in the programme. In addition to maintaining learning gains, the approach incorporates sharing of life-saving information and psychosocial protection to mitigate against negative coping strategies for girls during confinement.

Impact assessment data of our remote learning and protection intervention show that girls have achieved significant learning gains. After 5 weeks of remote learning, the proportion of girls able to read simple paragraphs of text fluently sharply increased from just 22% to 55% of girls. Similarly for numeracy, after 5 weeks the proportion of students unable to recognise 2-digit numbers decreased by more than four-fold from 23% at baseline to just 5% after 5 weeks. 

Assessment results also show that girls made significant gains in understanding of critical skills for socio-emotional development and protection. After 5 weeks of remote learning the proportion of girls with demonstrable understanding of health-related issues doubled from 40% to 88% of girls.

These substantive gains in foundational numeracy, literacy and life skills are transformative towards the ability of girls to access vital information and navigate risks encountered on a day-to-day basis, as well as increasing long-term employability prospects.

We thank you for your continued support towards this vital work.

Many of our activities were suspended abruptly in March 2020 with COVID-19 lockdown and school closures. This has had a huge impact on Musahar girls and families. In-person instruction is impossible. 100% have lost earnings, 21% have received no hygiene or sanitation support, and 75% have received no food support due to government discrimination, so many girls have eaten the ducks they received for a duck farming enterprise. There have been several beneficiary suicides due to the starvation and increased domestic violence/exploitation girls are experiencing, including male anger at the loss of income, forced marriage to reduce household expenses, sex trafficking, and forced transactional sex. Street Child spent the first months of lockdown providing food relief and key prevention measures (handwashing stations, hygiene supplies and education), but learning is the fundamental basis for change in earning and wellbeing and we are pivoting to remote instruction as soon as possible. Without the psychosocial support to build confidence and skills to resist harm, and without the ability to earn income for prosperity and protect against future shocks, the risk that Musahar girls will experience harm and/or starve without access to the program is extremely high.

Case Study: Before the national lockdown forced all schools and educational centres to close, fifteen-year-old Reenku* attended classes as part of the Breaking the Bonds programme for Musahar girls in Nepal. Her parents work as daily wage labourer’s, but due to the lockdown in Nepal, her parents are finding it tough. Without their only source of income, Reenku and her family cannot afford to buy food and basic essentials.     

Unfortunately, this tale is all too familiar for many of the marginalised Musahar families in Nepal who are already facing the long-lasting impact of the pandemic. “Most of the people from my community are surviving on only rice and salt. We don’t have money to buy food,” says Reenku, fearful that her fragile community will never recover from the damages the pandemic has already caused. 

Prior to the lockdown, Reenku’s family had managed to store rice and lentils but with so many mouths to feed in the home their supply has quickly depleted and with restrictions on movement still in place, Reenku cannot even go out to collect firewood for cooking from the nearby forest. 

*Name has been altered to protect identity.

Thank you again for your support of this crucial work and Street Child! 

Revati - The student determined to change her future.

When eighteen-year-old Revati first joined Street Child’s programme for Musahar girls she was very shy and would not speak in class. Now, her story could not be more different. Revati is an active member of her class, showing a keen interest in literacy, numeracy, learning English, and communicating with her peers.

Before attending the life skills component of the programme, Revati says she was ashamed by her menstrual cycle. Now, this has changed. Revati now knows how to maintain good menstrual health hygiene and know knows how to use sanitary towels, knowledge which she has passed onto her friends, diminishing the taboo which surrounds this topic.

Rhadika - The young mother determined to start her own business. 

Eighteen-year-old Radhika is a mother to three children and before enrolling onto Street Child’s programme for Musahar girls she had never been to school. 

When she first began the programme, Radhika was one of the beginner level students in her class and she couldn’t recognise a single letter or number. Now, Radhika can recognise letters and single digit numbers and as a result is a lot more confident in her own capabilities. 

“I am surprised that I have learnt so much already. I want to be able to read stories so I can read to my children. If I learn how to do math, maybe I can one day have my own shop or tea stall without needing anyone to help me with calculations. My mother-in-law and husband are very supportive of me coming to class and I hope that one day I can help them to bring an income into the family.”

Chandrika - The student growing in confidence each day. 

Before enrolling in Street Child’s programme for Musahar girls, sixteen-year-old Chandrika had never been to school, as her father went abroad for labour work, leaving her at home to support her mother with household chores and the rice harvest.

Chandrika has had to learn everything completely from scratch: “I learned Nepali alphabets, words and sentences, English alphabets, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division!”

When she was a young child, Chandrika had a small wound on her face. The home remedy applied to heal it, sadly, had the opposite effect leaving Chandrika’s skin scarred as if it had been burnt, and as a result she has struggled with low self-confidence all her life.

However, things are changing. Since coming to Street Child’s classes she cannot believe how her studies have boosted her spirits: “Before coming to this class I used to feel fear to speak in front of others, and couldn’t speak any words, but now I can speak without any fear. I feel more confident now.”

Outside of the classroom Chandrika loves to draw, and with her new-found confidence she aspires to learn embroidery when the programme comes to an end.