Winnie, who lives in Seaford, got in contact with WWR out of the blue and after some prayer and thoughtful questioning travelled to Kathmandu last month to spend two weeks with our ladies and inspired them to make these 100 garments. Please get in contact if you would like to buy them, sell them on our behalf or would even like to travel to Nepal to set up your own business with our ladies!
Tearfund is organising a prayer trip to Nepal at the start of April that includes a visit to Kathmandu. At the moment there are not enough people signed up for the trip to make it viable. So, if you have ever thought about going to Nepal, and would like to do so in the company of praying Christians, this is your chance!
Do get in contact with Tearfund if you are interested, more information can be found on their Prayer Trips webpage.
Today, July 4th, our ladies moved into our new Grace Women’s Home on the outskirts of Kathmandu – we are so excited for them! Three women, four children and our new home manager, Shubhadra, have relocated and there will be more women arriving over the next few weeks. We have 11 rooms for them as well as a kitchen and meeting room.
There are plans to set up a bio-dynamic farm on the land and we hope the women will be a strong support to one another – all of them have endured great hardship.
Our first residents
We still require some funding so if you think you could commit to giving £10/month to keep this home running then please get in contact: anna@wwr-nepal.org
If you are wondering what situations our women find themselves in and why they need help then read on. This is the story of a new woman who has just been referred to us, it is in her own words:
I am 35 yrs old. I used to live in a village along with my son, daughter and husband. We were farmer and my husband was carpenter but unfortunately my husband had suffered from throat cancer. We took lots of loan from villagers and brought him to Kathmandu for his treatment, but it was too late and he took rest in the Lord. Because of my poverty my sister in law took my daughter with her for her bright future.
When I was in miserable condition one of the bad man misbehaved me and he had rapped me. Then I could not able to faced out to the villagers, he destroyed not only my life but entire my family social life.
In our society what ever be the matter the villagers had blamed women they accused me characterless women and locked me at my house, my brother in law took my son along with him then I was completely alone. I did not have any other alternative so I got forcefully married with the same man who raped me. My stories doesn’t end here after marriage, I had got one daughter from him. I had got physically and mentally torture from my new husband and my in laws. It was intolerable to me so I ran away from their and I divorce him and settle to the my new life along with my daughter. I started to work as a maid to earn my livelihood. Still my life is going on sorrow and pain.
Please pray for me.
We have great news to share with you; doesn’t this look like a beautiful place to live?!
We have been thinking of setting up a home to house our women for a while, and this centre is available for us to rent. It is at the edge of Kathmandu Valley in an unspoilt and unpolluted location.
The benefits:
20 women could live there and provide company to each other; we hope to provide their meals too. Unlike the rooms that they currently live in, there is running water and we will install a
back-up electricity source so that they won’t be plunged into darkness during the many powercuts. The building is far safer in an earthquake than the delapidated buildings the women live in in heavily built up Kathmandu.
It costs £650 per month and so we are looking for 65 people to give £10 per month to make it possible.
Please consider if you can help us, as you know we are only a small charity. Please e-mail Anna at anna@wwr-nepal.org if you can help.
Not only will your money be used to help to provide our women with a home, since we are renting the property from another charity called Restless Development (www.restlessdevelopment.org) they will use the funds we give them to assist them in their youth projects across Nepal – it’s a charity Two For One!
This lovely letter has just arrived from the daughter of one of the women we help in Kathmandu. The English isn’t perfect, but I’m sure you will sense the deep gratitude that she conveys. Thanks to all our supporters who make it possible for us to help families like this.
We want to give thank from our family that your family have support us to pay rent. But if you had not we will be at the street somewhere wandering. Thank a lot again. So, in this letter I want to tell you somethings about my family. We have five members of our family…. First my Father and Mother, they were separated when I was small. So, my Mum was always worried and wandering about our life. Many problems we face in our life, because of that my Mum get depression diseases, she will not know what we tell to her and also she can’t express her feeling but somehow she is healed by Lord Jesus Christ. Now, she carried little things to the road ways and sell and earn some money, but am very scared and worried of her life because she had diseases….and no one to look after her but by the grace of God and by your help she is OK, so thank you again…..I have express some of my family problem, please pray for us, we need a lot of prayer for my family….We are really joyful and thankful for your great help.
Renee, one of the trustees in is Kathmandu right now, she writes:
I have visited ladies from WWR this week. Some stories are real success stories but others remain heartbreaking. We have a new deaf lady (62) who is all alone, having had leprosy and being rejected because of this by her brothers. Her “friends” in life are her hens and ducks which roam freely in her room, including her bed. One hen was sick; she walked for two hours to get hen medicine. On leaving her room she gave us 11 eggs. We did not want to take them, but not to would offend her. The lady has nothing in life and yet she gave us all that she had. We had been given the opportunity to be life- givers to her by taking food and WWR have provided a hearing aid for her. We hope we have been able to put our faith into action. We will continue to do what we can for her, but it was a very humbling and distressing visit for us.
Please pray for Renee, and all the women we support, that we can determine how best to help them.
Please take time to read the testimony of one of the recent graduates from the Cyrene sewing course. She is shown here addressing her fellow students at the graduation ceremony.
If you have a spare 25 minutes please make time to watch the latest edition of Unreported World on Channel 4, it is available to view at the ’4On Demand’ website for the next 27 days (until 13th December 2009). I warn you though, it will make you cry.
The presenter Yemi Ipaye visits a number of child widows living in the South-West of the country. Their situations are desperate. One girl was married at 11 and widowed at 13. She was married off at a young age because the dowry paid by the parents is less the younger the bride is. Now she is viewed as a burden by her parents who beat and verbally abuse her; she will not be married again as she is now perceived as being bad luck and is blamed for the death of her husband. Like many widows she may need to resort to prostitution to provide for herself.
The Hindu belief in reincarnation makes it clear that bad luck in this life is determined by past sins in a previous life. Therefore young widows are ostracised by society and insulted, they are treated as if they were evil and are isolated and become the ‘living dead’, the title of the program. In the past in Nepal sati was practiced. This is the ritual suicide of a wife when her husband dies. It was carried out by the widow climbing onto the funeral pyre of her husband and burning alive. The practice was outlawed across Nepal and India a century ago but the prejudice and stigma that enforced it remains today. It seems that a widow’s life is worth nothing.
A widow in Kathmandu described how she had been asked to leave her home when her landlord discovered she was a widow. Now she no longer tells anyone, simply lying that her husband is working overseas. She is impoverished and has had to send her two children to an orphanage because she can not look after them.
Women Without Roofs supports women that are on their own either because they are widowed or their husband is missing. Please help us to help more women like these.
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