Srs. of Charity (Nazareth) foster Nepalese women as community leaders
Women in Nepal say a six-month vocational skills program the Nazareth sisters run has given them confidence in a society that frowns on women working outside the home.
Sent to famvin by the Sisters of Charity, Nazareth…
“It feels great to have gained confidence and learned new things I wouldn’t have learned in my village,” Deepa Bhusal enthused as she spoke with UCA News on Aug. 24 after a graduation ceremony at Nav-Jyoti Women’s Development Center in Baluwatar, Kathmandu.
“Nepal’s male-dominated society doesn’t allow women to do anything outside their homes. I am grateful to the nuns that I will now be able to stand on my own feet and also serve the other poor women in my village,” the mother of two said.
Bhusal, who hails from Kapilvastu, 220 kilometers southwest of Kathmandu, and 17 other women made up the 15th group that completed the nuns’ residential six-month Rural Women Animators program.
The Sisters of Charity of Nazareth started the program in 1994 to train women in community leadership, emergency first aid, group animation, vocational skills, and how to budget and save money.
“So far 317 women from 52 districts in Nepal have completed training here and are working in their respective villages for the uplift of women,” said Sister Teresa Madassery, superior of the nuns who run the program in Baluwatar. Nepal has 75 districts in all.
Sister Madassery told UCA News on Aug. 25 that the women who join the training are victims of various forms of discrimination and violence. Through the program they learn ways “to be self-reliant while also becoming community workers.”
Aruna Chaudhary, a previous graduate, came to Baluwatar to attend the ceremony. The training helped her “gain confidence in life,” she told UCA News. “I am now independent and am working for women through an NGO in Kathmandu.”
Pabitra Rai, who had just completed the course, felt similarly empowered. “This training program has given us an opportunity to hone our skills. It has helped us find within ourselves what we are capable of doing,” she said.
Rai, who comes from Patapur in far-eastern Nepal, admits she was “a shy girl” when she arrived six months ago. “But this program has boosted my confidence and I can now go out to the world on my own,” she said. Rai plans to go back to her village and organize similar training programs for women.
Durga Bhattarai, from Chandranigahpur in southern Nepal, likewise said: “I am happy that I got to meet women and share our joys and sorrows. I have now gained enough confidence to go back to my village and earn a living, while also helping other women like me.”
The nuns often visit program graduates and evaluate their activities. “Society has now changed the way it looks at these women. It now respects them,” Sister Madassery said.
The Nazareth sisters started work in Nepal with three nuns who came to Kathmandu from neighboring India in 1979. Now, 11 nuns work for the empowerment of rural women, while also running a school and tuition classes for the mentally challenged and poor children in three places — Kathmandu, Dharan in eastern Nepal and Surkhet in western Nepal.
According to PeaceWomen, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, women in Nepal face discrimination and lag far behind men in many areas mainly because of long-held social and cultural structures and attitudes. Nepalese women remain illiterate, under-represented and unaware of their rights, it says on its website (www.peacewomen.org).
“Currently about two-thirds of Nepal women cannot read or write,” the group claims. It pointed out that women constitute half the country’s 27 million people, but the condition of most of them “is not satisfactory” despite equal rights and opportunities guaranteed by the constitution.
Article printed from Union of Catholic Asian News: URL to article: http://www.ucanews.com/2008/09/02/nazareth-sisters-continue-to-empower-women-as-community-animators/
Tags: Nazareth, Nepal, Srs-of-charity