By Sarah Andrews | Executive Director
This week, 15 students from the St. Andrews School in Austin, Texas will board a plane for Nepal where they will work alongside local community members and Edge of Seven to build a secondary school for the students of Kaku in the Solukhumbu District.
The K-10 campus in Kaku serves 539 students, half of which are female. Many of the classrooms in Kaku are dilapidated and in extremely poor condition. Students in Kaku are primarily Janajati, an indigenous population that is often excluded from Nepal's mainstream. As Kaku is located a 45 minute walk from the village of Basa, students who graduate from grade 10 in Kaku are able to pursue grades 11 and 12 at the higher secondary school in Basa that Edge of Seven worked to complete last year.
Providing access to higher education, particularly for girls, is our chief aim at Edge of Seven. That's because girls in developing countries, like Nepal, are most often denied opportunities for advancement. At our Solukhumbu Girls Hostel in Salleri, we house 40 girls who are pursuing a higher education. Some girls, like Roshani, are lucky to come from families who support educating their daughters. Roshani says that her parents were different from other girls' parents in her Tamang village, where having a daughter was seen as a sign of misfortune. While most families endeavored to marry off their daughters as quickly as possible, Roshani's parents encouraged her to stay in school.
"They told me to study rather than get married," she said. "They always told me that if I was educated, I would make better decisions for my life. With an education, you have a clear path. Without it, you are blind."
By supporting Edge of Seven through GlobalGiving, you are helping to make the future brighter for girls like Roshani and students in villages like Kaku. Thank you for joining us in our mission to create more access to education for girls and disadvantaged students in Nepal!
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