Updated

There have been some changes to our website and ‘The Team’ page is new.  We hope you find the changes useful and they give you a good idea about what WWR does.

Help WWR mark International Women’s Day

International Women’s Day

Today, 8th March 2010, marks the centenary year of International Women’s Day and Women Without Roofs – Nepal would like you to invite you to remember all the women in Nepal we help.   Recently we have begun supporting several new women and this is a story about just one of them:

 

Meet Uma

Uma with her family

 She is 31 yrs old and has 3 children. 11 yrs daughter, 7 yrs boy and 6 years boy.  Her husband left her about 5 yrs ago and took her 6 yrs son with him.  Her husband has another wife.   Now she is living with just 2 of her children.  She works at a carpet factory and lives in one room and cooks on a kerosene stove and has no good bedding for sleep.  Her daughter goes to school but she does not have money for her 7 yrs boy to go to school, so he does not go to school.  She needs also support from WWR.

Womenswear for WWR

Renee, one of our trustees, will shortly be leaving for a visit to Kathmandu and it would be fantastic if she could take some gifts to the women who have so little.  Almost all of the women have never owned new clothes and we would love to provide them this basic luxury, that we take for granted.  We would be hugely grateful, if you our supporters, could purchase just one new item of clothing, perhaps a t-shirt, pair of socks or cardigan and send it to Renee (or give to Anna or Marilyn) for her to take to the women.  Perhaps you could select something for them next time you do your supermarket shop, it need not be expensive, for instance M&S sell fairtrade t-shirts for just £5.

Particulars

1. Clothing should be between the UK sizes of 10 to 16 and sizes 12 and 14 would be most useful.

2.  Clothing should be new, we know you probably have lots of 2nd-hand clothing we could pass on, but we would really like to treat the women to something new and Renee only has limited space in her luggage allowance.

3.  The women in general wear Nepali clothes and so it would be most useful for them to have something they could layer such as a t-shirt or cardigan.

4.  The deadline for clothing items to reach Renee is Friday 19th March.  Please e-mail us at renee@wwr-nepal.org for the address to send items to.

5.  Should you wish to hand Marilyn (in Reading) or Anna (in Watchfield, nr Swindon) the items for them to post on with other garments that have been collected, then the deadline is Monday 15th March.  Please e-mail anna@wwr-nepal.org for their addresses also. 

6.  If you sponsor a specific woman and would like the garment to go particularly to her then please write her name and yours on the label.  

Thank you so much for you support.  We really do appreciate it and know that it makes such a huge difference to the lives of the women in Nepal, all of whom burst into tears whenever we give them a gift!  Please do not hesitate to get in contact with us if you have any questions.  

With our heartfelt thanks,

 Anna, Renee and Marilyn

The Trustees of WWR

A Scooter for Bina

Bina, our reliable and caring co-ordinator in Kathmandu, Nepal, will shortly be the proud owner of a new silver Scooter, bought, in part, by WWR. The new Scooter, pictured below, will allow her to get around Kathmandu far more easily than she has been by bus. This means she will be able to visit the women we support more frequently and spend more time with them.

Bina's new Scooter

New Woman

We are growing all the time and take on the support of new women frequently.  This is the moving story of the latest woman we have taken on:

She has three children aged 15,13 and 10. They are originally from Rolpa. They came to Kathmandu 7 years ago. Her husband went to Malaysia for work and after a few months he was sick and was supposed to return to Nepal. But he did not come back and was not in Malaysia. She asked her husband’s friend where he was and they told her that he had already come back to Nepal. But he has not arrived.  So she has lost her husband, since then she has done household work to survive. She has to work at 4 houses. At one house, they lost their 10 tola (tola is a Nepali measurment) gold worth Rs 250,000 (approx £2000). It was blamed on her. They beat her and took her to the police station. She said she did not take the gold. The policeman also did not get any proof. Then the other 3 houses also did not give her work, so nowadays she does not have work. She has been unable to pay her rent too. She is a Christian.

Please help us to support women in these dreadful situations either by making a one-off donation or, even better, by sponsoring one of them for £10 per month.  Please see the ‘Contact Us’ page for how to do this.  Thank you.