With my attempt to blend in as much as I possibly can, which isnt that easy since a mere glance at my skin gives it away I am nowhere near being considered a local or for that matter anything but an english speaking citizen, I am daily wearing as much clothing as the locals do. meaning im pretty much sweating everyday so i will not be considered one of those "easy" white girls...i sure hope my body acclimates at a faster pace, its already 90 here by the mid afternoon and having dare to wear a tank top the other day with a scarf covering my shoulders, i felt very scandalous!
its been two weeks and it looks like things are coming together.Nepali time is about 3 weeks and one hour behind American time/efficiency. Its been interesting getting used to.
As of now, I am helping these two Americans, one who I met in CA before I left for Nepal, with their new business. They hire trafficking victims and teach them how to make jewelry. They currently have 5 women, who are now able to sustain a life on their salary at Beauty for Ashes and have a new family that will provide the support and love the Nepali people are accustomed to.
Necia and Ellen, the two founders of Beauty for Ashes, are extremely overwhelmed and busy with creating and developing this new business they havent found the time to do the small things like organize and make a productive, efficient organization system for all their producsts and data. Thisi s where I come in. My delight in organizing and data entering will help them be able to expand and move forward at a better rate.
Necia introduced me to this organization Beauty for Ashes has recently become affiliated with, Tiny Hands International. Founded by American men, John, the founder who resides in Kathmandu, has taken my future law school education and liking toward research and interviewing and paired it with a mini, investigation assignment!
John is extremely eager, enthusiastic, motivated and a go-getter. His personality and determination has given me a lot of responsibility, but after discussing with him what he thinks I can do, has settled my heart and reassured my time in Nepal!
Tiny Hands works with anti-trafficking, mostly doing border patrol between the open Nepal and India border. They have about 12 stations around Nepal and as I spoke with the overseer of these stations, 90% of the cases the police release the traffickers on grounds of bribery.
John, as do I, are convinced that if I compile various strategies, advice, ideas from other NGO's (non-governmental organizations) and lawyers and write some sort of statement that we could then get published in a national newspaper, bribery could be defeated! Within Hinduism and Nepali culture, family and pride are huge factors to the way people live their life. By creating awareness and real concern within these communities, ideally pressure would be placed on the police to take these cases more serious and act in favor of the traffickee and dismiss the bribes, in order to maintain their pride and reputation in their own community.
Im currently trying to setup interviews with these various people. It might be somewhat of a struggle to meet with the more powerful, well known organizations, but I hope God will be on my side with this one and let things fluidly progress.
Happy Womens Day!
passing monkeys is as frequent as seeing opossums or lizards in your yard.
(basically you cant go a day w/o passing one)
My most recent purchase!
no, im not becoming a thief! im simply trying to limit my
daily intake of the diesel and not so pleasant rubbish
fragranted air, just like all the other Nepali.
No comments:
Post a Comment