02/01/05
Text: Mike Marriner
It’s obvious that these Nepali villagers have been anticipating our arrival for weeks in advance. Ecstatic children are jumping all over us, buzzing like American kids on a sugar high. Parents have prepared flower displays that feel like a Himalayan-style Rose Parade. Homes are decorated as if royalty were coming to visit. And although the poverty of this third-world village is evident, the people don’t exude desperation. Not today—because on this vibrant Nepali afternoon, a group of Westerners from a small foundation are coming to help the local children keep their educational dreams alive.
In Nepal, you don’t have to be Bill Gates, Bono or Angelina Jolie to make a difference. With the average salary at $150 a year, the American dollar goes a long way. And while the strength of our currency can net us a fancy tourist gift on the cheap, it can also fund a student’s education for many years, helping a child to avoid the often horrible alternatives. Each year, over 7,000 Nepali children are sold into sex slavery, often because their parents can’t afford to feed the family, much less pay the $50 cost needed to keep each kid in school. It’s a powerful realization that the price of a posh dinner in America can actually save one of these children’s lives, and that’s the driving ethos behind the Madhav Ghimire Foundation, a small but mighty organization that awards scholarships to families who can’t afford their children’s education.
With a budget of just $10,000 per year, Madhav Ghimire is not going to cure global poverty. But in Chitwan, the little village we’re visiting in order to award four new scholarships, it’s a very big deal indeed.
Dr. Jeffrey Kottler first came to this village in 2001 with his student Kiran Regmi, and was astonished by the fact that “children were being sold to brothels because their parents could not afford the modest costs to keep them in school.” He vowed to return with funds to help these families. Since then, the foundation has sponsored over 40 girls, keeping them in school and away from the brothels, where many of them would likely have contracted AIDS. It is predicted that AIDS will become the leading cause of death for Nepalis ages 15–49 within the next decade. This, combined with low female literacy rates (76% of females age 16 and older in Nepal were illiterate in 2003), makes the efforts to keep these young women in school even more vital. “When you think about how far the American dollar goes in Nepal, it is pretty amazing,” Kottler says. “When I originally visited the village and realized how little money it takes to keep these young girls in school and away from brothels, I knew something had to be done.”
