The final day of Foundation 7 was a few minutes from starting when the door opened and in walked a teacher and a very small child. We were all speechless for a few moments for two reasons; firstly that someone had turned up and had brought their 5 year old child with them for the day; and secondly that the previous day we had been concerned that this female teacher had not arrived and that our enquiries had discovered that the lady had suffered a miscarriage!
And now, here she was arriving for the last day of the course, what to do!
We sat her down and gently asked what had happened and why was she here. Overall what she told is is truly shocking; she had suffered a miscarriage but really wanted to complete the course so she could get a certificate, she asked her mother in law to look after her 5 year old son so she could come on the course, but her mother in law refused! So, undeterred she struggled in to the course and brought her son with her to ask if he could stay while she learned, all very tearful too!
(Our solution was to say that she could go home and rest, look after her son for the day, then return on the next Foundation course in a couple of weeks time for the last 2 days to complete it and get her certificate)
This episode unfortunately shows how some women are often treated in Nepal, though there are far worse stories than this from a male dominated society. In the eyes of the mother in law this poor woman has been downgraded because of the miscarriage and is virtually persona-non-grata. That's why her mother in law wouldn't offer any help or support. The least we can do is to publicise what happened.
1 comment:
Dear Brian, Champa , Babita and NSA team
This only goes to demonstrate the enormous challenges faced by Nepal and of course for NSA in overcoming the cultural values that NSA supporters find so impossible to understand.
Thankfully the NSA 'family' has shown that there is another way and that education leads people to behave differently. I'm sure your kindness and understanding for someone when they most needed support was powerful learning in itself.
Equally for a course candidate to value what NSA does so much that she can overcome her personal grief and ignore emotional and physical pain is incentive enough for NSA to continue.
Through your post I better understand your drive to never give in to the archaic traditions that harm innocent Nepali people.
I will look forward to hearing of the day the young teacher and mother receives her NSA certificate on behalf of all women ever faced with such a dilemma.
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