By Erica Stone | President
We were bouncing along a rutted dirt road on my way to a school in Tanahu. It was my third visit to this school in the dozen years since SGT started working in the area, and we arrived to much excitement — girls offering flowers and drawings, and the genial principal welcoming us in to a big room packed with SGT girls and their grandparents, uncles and mothers.
One after another, the girls got up to speak or read poems. They were impressive, confident speaking in front of a group and volubly grateful for their education. The difference twelve years made was huge, even to Dr. Aruna Uprety, our partner in this work.
Afterwards we visited several of the girls in their homes. Ausha and Asmita lived in a shack with their grandmother and great grandmother. Their mother was gone. Minu lived with her two brothers. Their mother was gone too, and the SGT teachers in their school had pooled their own money to get them electricity.
All of them had the trafficking risk factors — poverty, broken families, being low caste — that brought them to SGT. But being in school and under the watchful eyes of teachers and older girls gives them the support they need to stay safe, and flourish.
Another field visit to two villages new to SGT this year was very different. There was a particularly high prevalence of child marriage, child labor and girl trafficking. Alcohol abuse by fathers was common, malnutrition evident and the poverty gut-wrenching. In one of the two new schools, all 35 girls had to be added to SGT. One was 13 and only in grade two.
But even there, we left with a sense of hope. The girls in their new uniforms carried their backpacks with a sense of purpose and, despite the circumstances, fun. The older girls know the opportunities an education will give them later in life and are grateful for the chance to learn rather than earn. The youngest girls are simply happy to be in school.
I have no doubt that SGT will be able to do for these schools what they did in Tanahu. It will take time, effort and passion, but Aruna and the SGT team have those in spades.
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