It is a pleasure to share some exciting highlights from our team in Nepal. One of the challenges we face working with children who have been separated from family, exploited, and trafficked is that they often do not possess a birth certificate. Our social workers advocate on behalf of these children to have guardianship granted through the local government ward. Needless to say, this is NOT an easy task and takes a great deal of perseverance.
Kumari is pictured here with her newly issued birth certificate!
"Kumari (12 years old) always struggled for school admission because she didn't have birth certificate. Her mother abandoned when she was 3-4 years old and her step mother, who was taking care of her, died of heart attack. Her father was not found at all. The only way to get her birth certificate was through the guardianship of local ward chair. After about 6 months of hard work with government papers, Kumari received her birth certificate under the guardianship of local ward chairperson. Kumari gets her legal identity now. The whole ward office team gathered to thank the chairperson for providing guardianship."
And there’s more (too much for one update)… the Nepal government has asked our team to assist in strengthening the country's child protection mechanism at the community level. This will include training municipality level 'child rights officers' in case management and the reintegration of children. The government has long given us praise for the very scientific and meticulous approach we employ to find the families of children brought into our Kathmandu shelter. Now, they want us to train their workers so that more children across all of Nepal can be restored with their families… NOT raised in institutional care.
We celebrate these fantastic accomplishments of our Nepal team led by Suren Rasaily!