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A little piglet makes a big difference
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Girls' voices grow stronger
The tide is turning rapidly against the practice. The girls whose parents had accepted the piglet and the other benefits provided by NYOF - a kerosene lamp with fuel, school supplies, and uniforms - have become powerful agents of change. They have mastered many classic techniques to build local awareness: marching, speaking out, passing out leaflets, demonstrating in the square, and putting on street plays that depict tearful girls being parted from their equally tearful mothers.
During this year's festival, Pralhad Kumar Dhakal, executive director of NYOF's Nepalese partner organization, saw a large group of girls wearing school uniforms, banging on the sides of a bus that was carrying six small girls away. They refused to stop until the girls were let out the door.
Help still needed
But the practice is not over, and fear runs high for many young girls. While NYOF had enough funds to provide families with 500 piglets this year, it could not meet the need of an additional 172 girls who contacted NYOF at the festival and begged the group to find pigs for them, too.
For those rescued from servitude, however, the future is brighter. Twelve-year-old Rama Chandari was desperate not to be sent back for a third year as a
kamlari. Rama had been sold against the wishes of her mother. Her employer had let her come home for the festival, but Rama's father agreed to bond her again, despite her mother's objections.
When the NYOF representatives presented a black piglet to the family, "Rama and her mother were all smiles," says Dhakal. Like other girls in Dang "ransomed" by NYOF over the last three years, at the end of this year's month-long Maghe Festival, Rama will return to school, instead of to the life of an indentured servant.
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For more information on this program, visit
www.NYOF.org
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