End Child Labour in Southern Nepal

We are so happy with the progress of all the children and are seeing a lot of improvements. Apart from the educational progress, we are seeing a huge change in children – gaining more self confidence and having dreams about the future. We are particularly happy with the progress of the 90 children that joined us earlier this year – from our observations this is a lot due to the parents’ attitudes and encouragement. 

We are also very happy with the way the new community training sessions are going and more children and parents being aware of the risks associated with child labour and child marriage. 

One of the greatest achievements for us has been a change in the families’ attitudes – the parents of our older girls that finished their basic education told us that they will not marry the girls off but will let them continue their education. One of the girls broke off the arranged engagement (the girl never wanted that engagement in the first place) after the parents agreed for her to study further. The girls are really happy and we couldn’t be prouder of them. With that particular community this is almost unheard of and makes us very happy that we could contribute to this change, even if on a small scale so far. 

16 of our older children have requested extra support with maths and science – this is a really big achievement as shows the interest of the children in studying and also willingness to complete their education. We are now getting an extra part time (1.5 hours a day) amazing maths teacher to prepare these children for their exams. 

To finish the report, I would like to add a couple of stories that our teachers shared recently (children's names have been changed):

Rita, a 7-year-old girl, once lived a routine focused on household work and helping her parents in the field after the brick factory closed. She had little exposure to education and was unaware of the importance of learning or hygiene. Since joining our tuition class, Rita has started to explore a new path. She is now curious, asks questions, and enjoys reading and writing. Her daily habits have improved she brushes her teeth, wears clean clothes, and keeps herself neat. She attends school regularly and studies at home. Rita’s journey shows how a supportive environment can open doors to growth and opportunity.

Rohit – our 9 grade students started his civil engineering course and told us this is all thanks to our classes and that he never considered this kind of subject as his future career before. 

Thank you so much for all the support! We have some new exciting plans for the next few months and we will share those in my next report. Thank you!

Julia

It's been extremely busy few months. From January this year, we started providing our classes to 90 new children and they are all attending and loving all the activities. The new school year is starting in the next few days and all the children have been enrolled into regular school. They will continue to get extra classes from us too. 

The parents of the children will soon start getting their literacy and financial literacy classes, and after those, we will provide them with vocational training and help them with employment. So far all the parents are attending our monthly meetings and are very happy with the progress their children are making. What's most important for us, is that the children study instead of working at brick factories. 

We are working with 3 local schools on this project - they all are giving us classroom use for free which is great and helps our children to get used to formal school settings. We painted the classrooms and decorated them. We still need to do some fixing though as during the recent rains, we had water falling from the ceiling so quite difficult to run the classes in those conditions. So roof repairs will be done later this month. At one of the schools, the water pump that was needed to provide water at the toilets broke a year ago and the school decided to close the bathrooms altogether. When we went to see the school a few weeks ago, the smell all around the school was terrible - that was a result of students using school grounds as one big outside toilet. We are getting a new pump and new sinks for the school shortly and we are hoping we can get the students to start using the bathrooms from now on. 

We have 3 new fantastic teachers who are doing their best to inspire the children and the parents, and show them that they can do anything they dream of in the future. 

More exciting news coming soon!

Thank you all so much for all the support - it means so much!