Letters from Renu and the WFN staff . . .

A diary of social work in Nepal . . . . . . August 15, 2006

The Letters from Renu on these pages detail an ongoing saga of abuse. WARNING: these letters have graphic descriptions which may be disturbing. These are stories of real people in terrible trouble. The good news is that there are many individuals who are working to set the world right in Nepal. WFN is one of the groups seeing to it that something is being done to help.

	Dear Tara didi, In this picture a girl is carrying a basket on her head. She is carrying cow dung. Since she was three years old, she has collected dung from the fields. She and the other girls will make the dung into pizza like shapes and dry it in the sun. After it has dried their families will use it as fire wood. Some also goes on the gardens as fertilizer. Because they have no money to buy kerosene, fire wood, or fertilizer, these girls have to work at collecting dung, shaping and drying it. For these girls, school is only a dream.
	This is a picture of a girl living in the eastern part of Nepal. She is from one ethnic group call Musar. Where she lives, all people in her group are very poor. They are landless, They always work in other people's homes. Several of them are still bonded. All their children spend their days collecting wild food. This girl is trying to find something like wild potatoes( That is, not actually a potato, but maybe in the family of potatoes.). Also for her, school is but a dream.
	Many children would like to attend school, however, they come from families so poor that children must forage for food and fuel from an early age or face hunger and cold.  This child said, "I want to go to school.  It will not happen in my life." This child takes time out from his daily work to peer into the school wherein lies a dream - the possibility of an education and a way out of the grinding poverty which has gripped his family generation after generation. This child is not alone in Nepal where nearly 50% of all children do not attend school on anything like a regular basis. Your Sincerely Renu Sharma