Girls’ School Project
The girls from the remote western Himalayan region of Nepal belong to the poorest families and are considered untouchables which are also known as “Dalits” in their villages. Untouchables, or Dalits, are at the lowest social strata and hierarchy of the Indian caste system. They are considered unclean, and impure and are tasked with and relegated to the types of work that the higher castes would not agree to do or undertake. Cleaning of communal latrines, sweeping streets, backbreaking heavy manual labor, and the most menial and dirtiest of work are given to the untouchables. They are literally at the bottom rung of society, through no fault of their own other than a quirk of birth, without the possibility of ever changing their caste status. Even their future children will be condemned to remain as Dalits, untouchables, excluded, shunned, and segregated from the rest of civil society, lifetime after lifetime. This means that these children cannot attend a public school or any other schools in Nepal to obtain a formal education, especially for women in these remote regions.
Without education in an increasingly fast-changing, competitive, and technology-driven world, these girls will face a lifetime of hardships, indignity, despair, deprivations, exploitations, and privations. Girls of the untouchable caste are often raped by the upper castes without recourse to a court of law or fair trials, as their pleas for justice are often suppressed or ignored by the police or upper-class cast members. Sadly, untouchable girls are also routinely sold into prostitution.
If we believe in human rights, in the right to vote, in equal rights, in the dignity and right of an individual to seek freedom and happiness, then education should also be a fundamental, universal human right. Education is the great equalizer to level the playing field, without which an individual cannot hope to realize or actualize their inherent potential, talents, or abilities. Therefore, the Khawalung Foundation plans to build and establish a well-rounded school for these underprivileged girls and enroll, initially, at least 20 girls and provide them with an equal opportunity to have an education and a chance for a better life. The Khawalung Foundation has already initiated the project and has received permission and a certificate from the education ministry of Nepal to enroll and teach children in Nepal. For the short term, the Khawalung Foundation plans to rent a small building next to the Khawalung Monastery and start enrolling children at the Khawalung School.
Attached below is the budget that the foundation currently needs in order to successfully accomplish this project. Any kind of donation is highly appreciated as this not-for-profit project aims to help those girls who are in need in the remote areas of Nepal. Your donations will be an investment in an opportunity to change the expected trajectory of human life, from one of darkness, drudgery, and hopeless despair to one filled with the light of reason, logic, science, self-fulfillment, and achievements — through the foundations of modern education. It is an investment in changing a life, or the lives of many girls, the most vulnerable of our society.
Or you can help by donating your time as a volunteer, contributing supplies for educational materials, or by getting the word out about the mission of the Girls’ School, or in other ways that you can think of creatively, that will be constructive and positive to the education of the girls.
