Hong Kong helps Nepal: quake wrecked homes but not dreams of education

My first full day in Nepal began with a briefing from the Room to Read Nepal team. Over an early breakfast I listened to our plans for the day: “We’re going to visit students in our girls' education programme.  At the school we are visiting, we have 39 girls enrolled in our programme and support them to complete secondary school. Thirty-six of these young women had their houses destroyed in the recent earthquakes.”

This did not sound like a harbinger of a happy day. I debated what a visiting guest should say to the young women who had experienced and survived such trauma. 

Shree Bajrayoginee Secondary School lies in the dusty district of Sankhu, on the distant outskirts of the Kathmandu Valley. As we made the long drive, our team shared with me that the 36 girls whose homes had been destroyed were living in the tent camps that I was now viewing through the car window. Despite this challenge, every one of these girls still shows up for school every day, and has been doing so since the day schools reopened following the twin earthquakes that struck the country this spring.

How, I asked, was this possible? Reema, the director of our girls’ education programme, explained that her team of “social mobilisers” (our term for employed mentors who act as advocates for the girls in the programme) had been supporting these girls from day one - paying daily visits to the tent camps to offer trauma counselling to the girls and their families, while also encouraging them to prepare to return to school. “We want the girls to look forward rather than backward,” said Reema. This was not an easy task for many families, and in many cases it took a series of long conversations. 

Fortunately, the girls on our programme are extremely motivated. Some had even approached the workers who were in charge of the earthquake clean-up, asking them, “Can you find my books in the rubble? Can you locate my school uniform?” Our local team was amazed that the girls never spoke about the loss of their houses, but rather focused their fear on not being able to return to school.

The young women in our programme, ranging from grades eight to 11, gave us a warm greeting with bright smiles upon our arrival. They were dressed in the crisp new school uniforms our team had provided for them. Several girls had recently scored high marks on their national exam, five with high distinction, and were eager to share this news. We talked about the level of education their parents had enjoyed, and learned that not a single one of them had a mother who had finished secondary school. These girls will be part of a new generation of educated Nepali women who will likely one day be mothers and pass on that value of education and literacy to their future children.