Kinderhilfe Nepal e.V.Charity Organization for Nepalese Slum Children


Newsletter September, 2012

Dear Friends,

This year the monsoon, which is required for the cultivation of rice, is responsible for the strong increasing number of diseases in Kathmandu, caused by drinking contaminated water. The hospitals are overcrowded with patients suffering from typhoid fever. The government still led by the maoistic ideologist Dr. Barburam Battharai doesn't succeed in alleviating the problems of the country. All the parties demand his resignation, but he refuses to go, unless new elections take place in Nepal so that finally the parliament can constitute. The chairmen of about 50 parties in the country are more concerned in feeding their political ego than caring for the country. They try to work their way up into the government by all kinds of corrupt means. Nepal which has suffered for centuries from the deeply rooted cast systems, risks to become a state basing on ethnic groups. The numerous ethnic group of the country - there shall be more than a hundred - demonstrate separately and demand their rights and their own country.

In Nepal politics, administration, the army and even the industry are managed by a few castes and ethnic groups. Instead of straining after unity the tiny country is fragmenting more and more, and the politicians are trying to let arise an ethnic federalism: an impossible attempt, as the various ethnic groups have been living mixed together all over the country already for a long time. The Nepalese, who are known for their peacefulness for a long time, are becoming more and more aggressive and brutal, not just in traffic or on markets. Violence against women is growing.

The newspapers report that thirteen percent of female prisoners are tortured and raped. Women still don't have any right to the inheritance of their parents, only the male descendants do. Only one matter is carried out relentlessly by the actual government. After the streets of Kathmandu had been surveyed and one had found out that during the last hundred years a lot of houses had been built on land belonging to the government, now an army of bulldozers is crossing the capital, destroying all illegal buildings. Especially the 65 slum areas are concerned. So people living there started to prevent the action of the government by their passive resistance as long as possible. "Our" slum of Banshigat still exist and we carry on working there. Fist the slum of Thapatali was completely destroyed in order to give an example to all the slum communities. One day in April the army and the police encircled the settlement. The children were snatched away by force from their mothers and carried away by busses. Then the destruction began. About 500 people lost everything and now they occupy the neighbouring property. They live under plastic films in the middle of the monsoon, and they really want to keep the position, although they have no chance in the long run.

We improved their live conditions by distributing our milk pudding also to their children. It contains all the minerals and vitamins that are necessary.

All these people only have access to contaminated water, and many of hem got very sick. We bought water containers and supply the community with 4000 Liters of drinkable water per day. Sija and Muna distribute medicine for diarrhoea. We arranged for having a medical examination for women and children and provided the sick with medicine.

The police who now have to make sure that there is peace in Thapatali have got accommodation in a large tent. Without official permission they kindly put their accommodation at our disposal for the examination. Otherwise it wouldn't have been possible because of the heavy rain. They ordered to remove the plastic films of the occupants as soon as the rain stopped. While they were carrying out this command Ram Maya Rai, a mother of five children had a heavy fall and suffered a double fracture of her spinal column. As neither she nor her neighbours or friends had got any money, she stayed in hospital for 12 days without any providing. She wasn't operated until Children Aid Nepal finally paid 1000 Euros which were necessary to put sheets of metal in her back.

In the slum of Simamangal and in Banshigat Sija and Muna continue working in the kindergarten and in the health center. It is really sad to realize that people from the slums who lost everything what they had built up by themselves and with our help, libe again in the contaminated mud just as if they never have known anything else. But they also make us furious, because they don't try at all to get their children to safety, as they are in danger to fall ill seriously. In our last newsletter we told that little Saugat Pariya urgently had need of a kidney from his mother or father in order to stay alive. Saugat died at the end of July, because his parents refused to spend a kidney. He as six years old. In the face of so much unkindness we often lose our courage. These people always can rely on us. But we must learn constantly how indifferently they behave towards each other. We are suffering another frustrating period once again: All the improvements that we reached for the lives of these people are destroyed again by the government - mercilessly. It is discouraging for us, but we can't bring ourselves to leave them in sickness and misery. So we go on - not at last because of your valuable continuous support that has been giving us courage always again. Thanks to all of you in the name of these needy people, who get passive by their extreme material poverty.

Often they are unable to live as human beings with dignity. What we do is not so much, but if we don't do that, there wold be no more hope for them.

Warmest regards

Elisabeth Montet