Photo: Guest teacher Lindsey shows the girls how to make a new kind of clasp in their jewelry-making class at the home.
We are happy to report that earlier this month, two volunteers traveled from Houston, Texas, to visit the girls living at our ‘She Has Hope’ rehabilitation home in Nepal. The volunteers, one of whom is a jewelry designer, expanded the girls’ jewelry-making skills by helping them to source new beads, showed them how to properly close/clamp long necklaces, taught them to make earrings using a new technique, and taught them how to make stretch bracelets. The volunteers also taught the girls how to do yoga to loosen up their shoulders, backs, necks, and hips after long sessions of jewelry-making or sewing. The volunteers were a great source of encouragement to the girls — they enjoyed painting the girls’ nails, dancing and singing Nepali songs together, playing group games, and taking pictures of each other.
In other good news, seven girls (ages 16-30) will complete their 6-month skill development course at the rehabilitation home in August, a great accomplishment. In addition to learning new jewelry-making skills from the volunteers, they are also learning to knit woolen sweaters, socks, gloves, and babies’ hats. Many of their creations will be sold online at the ‘She Has Hope’ crafts shop where all the profits go toward the girls’ rehabilitation. In May the girls also prepared the soil at their garden project and planted bell peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, and spinach. They are looking forward to harvesting these vegetables in August. The girls enjoy seeing how their work in the garden comes to fruition as they tend to and care for the plants. After the growing season they are able to enjoy the fruits of their work as they use their own ingredients in their cooking classes and surprise each other with their culinary creations. This reveals to them the joy that they can experience in their own creativity as they serve one another.
Photo inset: (Top-left): Guest teacher Lindsey expands the girls’ jewelry-making skills by showing them new materials and techniques. (Top-right): Girls from our She Has Hope rehabilitation home are excited to show off their new jewelry designs. (Bottom-left): Children from our Nepal orphan home proudly hold their 5th grade graduation certificates. (Bottom-right): The girls in the rehabilitation home enjoy seeing how their work in the garden comes to fruition as they tend to and care for the plants.
In June we organized more of our trafficking awareness counseling classes for girls ages 13-18 in the heavily-trafficked areas of Nepal, and for women of all ages in other areas. This month we equipped 130 teenage girls through our training classes which are styled in a workshop and discussion format. We also reached more than 150 girls through our door-to-door trafficking awareness program in the surrounding villages, and also to hundreds more through our border trafficking awareness program for the girls who pass through the border. All of the teachers, students, and families are thankful for our trafficking awareness programs which allow the girls to talk about guilt, fear, shame, anger, and their safety — they are encouraged to open up and learn from each other’s experiences. They are also taught to identify different problems and dangerous situations, and they are given the solutions.
Our children from the orphan home started back to school in late April — we have 23 students enrolled this year. They are studying math, science, their native Nepali language, English, history, geography, social studies, and computer. They recently prepared for their first term exam which they took this month and did very well. In more good news, 3 of the children (ages 12-13) recently graduated from 5th grade. To relax from their hard work, the children enjoy computer games, watching movies, and riding bicycles during their free time. Focusing our efforts on helping the children excel in school is a key component in breaking the cycle of extreme poverty, and gives them great hope and an opportunity to change their lives.
As always, we are so grateful for your generous donations and your faithful prayers, helping to improve the lives of our girls, our children, and our native team, who faithfully serve in our programs.
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