“I myself am weak due to the polio, and people do not like to provide work for me.”
REPORT BACK February 2021
– Sakina
Photo: LWF Nepal
Your kindness changes COVID-19 to cosmetics (and rabbits!) Here in Australia our governments have supported us through the COVID-19 crisis, regardless of who we are. In a country like Nepal, people like Sakina already suffering in so many ways, were in danger of missing out again ... When Sakina was a girl, polio came to her village. Her family knew nothing about vaccination, and Sakina was infected. The family were too poor to afford any treatment and 3 year old Sakina, already suffering malnutrition, was left with a lifelong disability. When she tried to go to school, Sakina was teased and shunned because of her disability, and so has never had any formal education.
The risk is families like Sakina’s are forgotten and left to suffer in poverty alone. That’s where your ALWS help is life-transforming. For Sakina, it started with attending a community meeting supported by your LWF Nepal team to hear about the rights and entitlements of people with disabilities. She was excited by what she heard and was nominated to join a committee to promote the rights of people with disabilities.
Success like Sakina’s starts with your kindness in caring for those the world has forgotten. Your generosity is a blessing ALWayS! Thank you!
Eventually Sakina married, and began her own family, but she and her husband own no land. The only water is often contaminated with arsenic from the ground and unsafe to drink. They find whatever labouring jobs they can to support their children, but Sakina says people don’t like to employ her because of her disability. Now, COVID-19 has taken away any work at all, and Sakina is desperate: “Sometimes, I used to be in dilemma whether to go begging at the market.”
Sakina says she now feels much more confident talking with people in the community.
She is using this confidence to develop business ideas to support her family. Already she has two rabbits she is breeding to sell. She plans to re-establish her family’s business in making and selling bangles. Sakina even sees opportunities in the cosmetics business. In all this, Sakina’s goal is school for her children, so they can leave poverty behind: “I remember my children and their future. I don’t want to make them hopeless and weak among others in the community, so I have enrolled them in the public school.”
Don’t forget those who are suffering, but imagine that you are there with them. Hebrews 13:3 (CEV)