Projects: Education

Yes, we help over 15,000 children in school each year.  Here are some shining examples.

In rural Nepal, most families survive on subsistence farming, and illiteracy is widespread. In this environment, young girls are at a particularly great risk. Too often their vulnerabilities are exploited by sex traffickers, who, through deceptive promises of marriage or employment, or by purchasing the girls from their desperately poor parents, take the girls to brothels in India. Girls as young as 11 are trafficked to brothels where as many as 90% of them will contract HIV.

In 1997, AHF began a partnership with Dr. Aruna Uprety and the Rural Health and Education Services Trust to implement a simple and effective solution: keep them in school. Girls who stay in school are more valued by their families and communities, their education is a shield against traffickers, and their futures are full of promise and hope. It costs just $100 per year to keep a girl in school and save her from the horrific alternative.

The changes RHEST has brought to rural Nepal have been amazing. Girls in the RHEST program graduate from high school at twice the national average and not one has been lost to trafficking. In the beginning, Dr. Uprety had to go door to door to convince the girls' families to send them to school. It was almost unheard of. Today, whole villages are asking to be included. In 2009, AHF is supporting 6,000 girls through RHEST, and we plan to enroll 10,000 by 2013.

Mustang Day Cares

The kingdom of Lo, or Mustang, politically part of Nepal but culturally and geographically Tibetan, is home to 6,000 Lobas.  Most of them trade in the winter and practice subsistence agriculture the rest of the year - which means long days in the fields.  Parents have, until now, been faced with the difficult choice of taking along babies and young children with them into the fields or leaving them at home unattended - neither a safe option.  In one village, four children were lost in the river in one year.

With the AHF's help, fourteen villages have set up day care centers where more than 330 children have a secure, healthy place to stay and play.  They are also learning to read and count in three languages (including Tibetan, not taught in the local government school) and will proudly show off their singing and dancing abilities to their grateful parents - or to anyone who asks!

Childhaven first opened their doors and hearts in Nepal to nine orphaned and abandoned children.  Thirteen years later, 140 children, many of them refugees from the civil war, have a home and a new family with Childhaven in Kathmandu.  An additional 150 children from local poor families join the Childhaven throng during the day for school - and meals - but live with their parents.  

Six years ago we helped Childhaven build a new home to accommodate all of the children.  It's a bright place, and the children's voices fill the air with laughter and spirited songs.  We continue to help, with food, clothing and education for the resident children.  Thanks to Childhaven, these kids have a family - and real hope for their futures.