14
CLEAN FUTURES
A ray of hope
Eleven-year-old Madhavi lives in the small village of Chandanpur, located in Nepal’s Lalitpur district. Chandanpur is extremely challenging to access as it is surrounded by hills on all sides. This makes it difficult for the villagers to access essential education, transportation and healthcare services. Consequently, most inhabitants are dependent on cattle farming or the growing of cash crops for their livelihood. Madhavi is in class 5 at Kaleshwori Basic School and lives with her mother, Sita, and her younger brother. Her parents were married through an inter-caste marriage, meaning they belonged to different castes. Castes are hereditary social classes with hierarchical rules of caste in law, including restrictions on marriage and occupation. Intercaste marriage isn’t widely accepted in their culture and often leads to opposition and exclusion at the hands of families and communities. As they didn’t approve of her marriage, Sita’s family cut all ties with her. Then, two years ago, Madhavi’s father passed away due to excessive drinking. After her husband’s death, Sita started working in the kitchen of a local hotel, washing dishes. The family lives in a small cottage that leaks during the rainy season and the land that they own is sloped at such an angle that it is unsuitable for farming. With no support from her maternal home, Sita struggled to make ends meet and the family often went to bed on an empty stomach. Eventually, Madhavi had to drop out of school as her mother could not afford the school uniforms and stationery and her brother was at risk of dropping out too.
