Nepal is a country landlocked between India and Tibet, with a history of closing the border to the outside world and the persecution of minority religious groups. In 2010, Stand by Me became aware that there were hundreds of children living in isolated and remote mountainous villages where the possibility of an education was simply a dream. So Stand by Me adopted a children’s home run by a compassionate Christian couple in the southern town of Hetauda.
Today, the children’s home provides care for 114 children, many considered ‘untouchable’ due to their low caste. They live at the home in term time and all go to one of Nepal’s best performing schools in the town.
The work in Nepal expanded when the Nepal earthquake hit in April 2015 and destroyed the homes and livelihood of many of our children’s families. Stand by Me’s staff in Nepal were perfectly placed to deliver life-saving provisions of food, water and temporary shelter to isolated families in remote communities in the mountains. However, the staff recognised a need beyond immediate relief and decided to establish a school in the Khairang area which has now become a centre from which we reach the local community through building homes, educating children, initiating sustainability projects and providing teaching about, and access to, healthcare.
The Khairang can be a dangerous place for children, particularly girls. The lure of child traffickers is a serious threat and the cultural bonds of early marriage still remain. For parents who fear that their daughters could be snatched away at any moment, abducted by child traffickers or encouraged to marry before they are legally allowed, the Khairang Bethany School is a voice of hope, raising awareness and empowering girls, helping them realise their own worth and identity.
Phul Maya’s name means ‘beautiful flower’. When I visited the Khairang, she was walking around with her new-born baby in her arms, struggling to cope. Phul Maya has a husband but they have no land or home of their own, a familiar story in this remote community. After being taken in early marriage by a boy, she had given birth to her first child at the age of fifteen. She and her husband lived with her parents who themselves struggle to make ends meet.
Stand by Me is promoting education aimed at helping families break free from traditions that allow girls as young as even twelve to follow the cultural expectation of marriage at an early age. Our loving staff equip them with the knowledge and skills needed to avoid these dangers. We help them with advocacy, understanding their rights under Nepali law, and teaching about the benefits of a free choice in marriage and delaying marriage until girls are physically mature.
Education also extends to the parents, encouraging them to not be passive in these situations but help protect their daughters from becoming trapped in the same cultural bonds of the generations before them. This education also includes the men and young boys and we are encouraged by the positive attitudes for change shown by so many in this remote community. It may have come too late for Phul Maya, but her little sister will now have education to make personal life choices to benefit herself and her community.
Shree Maya is Phul Maya’s mother. She was also a child bride. Her family home is little more than a mud and stone hut, with no water supply and no sanitation other than the fields around. The family scrape a living through subsistence farming like most of their neighbours.
Some of Shree Maya’s younger children attend the Khairang Bethany School supported by Stand by Me. As well as basic literacy and numeracy, Shree Maya’s children are learning about hygiene and health. These are lessons that have come almost too late for many of the adults.
In November 2016, Shree Maya gave birth to another child, but knowing nothing of the process of childbirth, did not understand that a retained placenta was a serious complication and needed rapid intervention. She had no idea that a placenta should come away within an hour of the baby being born and that to wait any longer was to invite life-threatening infection and serious haemorrhage. It was not until a week later, when she was bleeding and weak with infection, that her family finally contacted Stand by Me’s manager in the Khairang for help. He asked them to bring her to the hospital in Hetauda which involved an eight hour walk through the night with Shree Maya in a dhoko basket on the back of a friend. At the local hospital, doctors said she was only hours away from death and her only chance was to be taken to the ITU at Bharatpur Hospital, another two hours drive away. Here, surgery, a blood transfusion and medication saved her life.
Shree Maya made a miraculous recovery. Prayers from the church in the Khairang and from those in Hetauda and the UK were answered. After her recovery Shree Maya began to attend the church and has since accepted Jesus as her Saviour.
On a subsequent visit to the Khairang, I was able to meet Shree Maya who came to say thank you and brought her small son, now a healthy baby of several months old. She asked our staff to name the little boy and so we gave him the name Ashish which means ‘blessing’.
In November of 2019, I again saw Shree Maya and Ashish, who is now almost three years old and will be joining our Bethany School. Ashish is a living reminder of God’s blessings given in the most difficult of times and places.
Improving health provision is part of Stand by Me’s vision for the Khairang as currently there is no local healthcare and people must travel four hours by bus in the dry season or three days by walking in the wet season to even reach a nurse. The nearest hospital is still another hour’s drive away. Equipping women like Shree Maya with the most basic of skills and knowledge about normal body processes would make this sort of incident less common and far less traumatic for all concerned.
Maternal death rates are very high in such communities as this, with three local women dying in the months following Shree Maya’s recovery. The consequent orphaning of children leaves them very vulnerable, as a father taking a new wife will usually abandon the first family because this is the longstanding cultural custom.
Two of our school staff are about to start training as healthcare givers, being trained by an experienced nurse in Hetauda. They will bring basic skills to the community, teaching the people about first aid, improving diets and maternity and post-natal care. Stand by Me already provides first aid materials and covers medical costs for our school children, and these trained ladies will expand the provision to the wider community.
While Stand by Me is still facing difficulties in bringing healthcare to the isolated Khairang community, progress is being made. In Hetauda, where there are local hospitals and nurses, the children’s health remains a priority.
Two of our girls are going through a second round of plastic surgery to relieve the consequences of severe burns to their hands which they suffered as babies. Burns to the hand are a common injury for crawling babies because cooking fires within the poorest homes are a simple pit in the floor.
Both Soma and Ram Maya suffered these burns as infants and now have the scar tissue and constrictions in tendons that make their hands misshapen as well as limiting normal function. Neither girl’s family would be able to afford any medical help for the girls but with the help of Stand by Me they have been seen by the best plastic surgeons in Nepal and surgery on their hands has resulted in greater mobility and better cosmetic appearance.
Seeing them able to sew and draw has been wonderful, but it is the willingness to keep their hands out of pockets and in plain sight that is heart-warming. The hands will never look perfect but most fingers are now straight and the girls are happily practising their physiotherapy exercises to maximise the improvements that the surgery has given them.
As we work towards improving access to medical care and increasing health and hygiene education, we are hopeful about seeing the long term benefit of communities making better health choices and receiving vital medical assistance whenever they need it. From the remote Khairang to the town of Hetauda, children who were once feeling worthless and isolated are today much healthier, are growing in self-worth and are experiencing the love of God.
