As with the rest of South Asia, COVID-19 infections are on the rise in Nepal. We are starting to see fatalities also increase, which is a worrying sign. The pandemic appears to be spreading in the communities we work in as well. Per the latest reports, there were 11 people infected with 1 making a recovery within the Dakshinkali municipality This is normally a time of many festivals and events, but people have been complying with the lockdowns as much as possible, which has helped to reduce the number of deaths. We hope the infections will start to slow, but it is too early to tell yet. 

We are not letting the news bring us down though. We are continuing to find ways to engage with our sisters and also with each other. Our mentors have continued the remote clubs and are now trying to find ways to make them even more interesting and fun for the girls. We celebrated Father's Day with the girls making wonderful greeting cards for their fathers. Our team is continuing their Book Club where they read books and discuss ideas with each other. 

We are also trying to find a way to ensure that education does not end just because school is not back in session. We are looking at socially-distanced tutoring, and have a few of these programs underway. We will expand on this as much as capacity will allow, and we will have much more on these efforts in the coming months.

Speaking of the coming months, what do we see happening over the next few months? We have a few plans and ideas:

1. We will continue to enhance the capacity of our entire team, including mentors through online training and group projects.

2. We will conduct online mentoring as much as possible.

3. We will continue to tackle difficult subjects like caste-based and color-based discrimination as well as harassment

4. We will look to make the remote mentoring sessions even more fun by adding activities, such as: dancing, singing, story-telling, poems writing and more.

5. We will try to celebrate events that would be normally major events in-person, remotely or see if we can conduct them in a safe socially-distanced manner. Events like: Children's Day, Literacy Day, International Day of the Girl, Anniversary, and more.

6. We will expand on the tutoring program so that we can have different mentors in different villages providing educational opportunities for girls while school is not in session. We may continue these programs even after school is in session as a way to provide additional support. 

Now that the COVID-19 spread in Nepal is getting worse, we know that there is not only a physical illness issue, but a mental health crisis on its way too. We will do everything in our power to ensure that the physical, mental and emotional health of our team and our girls are looked after.

On 18^th August 2020, the National Examination Board [NEB] published the Secondary Education Examination [SEE] results. The students were evaluated based on the performance of each student in their respective schools without a national examination. Each school submitted their evaluation report of the students, based on set standards to the National Examination Board. Five of our Bahinis were part of this group, and we are so happy to report that all 5 were not only considered graduated, but did so with excellent academic records.

We know this is just the beginning for these girls, and we will be with them throughout their education journey, especially during these difficult times.

The COVID-19 lockdown has disrupted education worldwide, but in places like our communities where remote education is not yet a reality, it has effectively put an end to learning for kids at a critical age. This affects girls even more severely because this puts them at a greater risk for child marriage. Our team has been thinking of ways we could address this, and one such idea is to hold socially distanced tutoring sessions. With no schools open, we have to hold them in different villages.

We are so proud to report that we have some of our mentees now stepping up to be the mentors and take on this challenge. Two such girls are sisters, Ganga and Sanjita. They found a safe place at the home of our scholars, Amita and Ramita's grandmother's. Our team provided them a few necessary items like : one white board and markers, notebooks, masks, sanitizers and soap for running the class. We are so proud to see that girls who received support in the past are already paying it forward. This gives us hope for a better future.

Since we could not hold a ceremony to bring families together to celebrate Nepali Father's Day. a few of our Bahinis made very nice cards and wrote poems on the occasion of  Kuse Aunsi, or known as the day to see your father's face. This day is celebrated around the month of August and is observed according to the Lunar Calendar. This year the celebration fell on August 19th.

Hallmark has nothing on these cards

Last month, we shared about a training session that our team had with the wonderful team at Next Skills 360 from India. As the Rukmini Didis and teachers pass on what they learned in the workshop to Rukmini scholars, it will provide the scholars with additional opportunity for learning and growth as they find their place in this vast and growing world of technology.

We hope such workshops and learning opportunities will inspire creativity and innovative ideas among our scholars so that they can move ahead in life and meet the digital age with more understanding and opportunities. We also hope that we will be able to provide the technical equipment, such as computers, needed to do coding with a computer, so that these girls can help program a better future for themselves and our community.

We want to end this newsletter on a very positive note, so we decided to highlight one of our amazing team members, Ms. Lalita Lamichhane. 

Lalita became a wife when she was supposed to still be student at school. Due to circumstances beyond her control, she had to get married at an early age, so her education seemed to end in the 8th grade. She then became a mother when she should have been graduating from high school. Despite these early setbacks, she never gave up on her dreams of graduating and continuing her education.

Years after she dropped out, she decided to join, Shikharapur Open School, a school designed for students like her who had to drop out and looking to continue their education. Through hard work, she was eventually able to graduate with great results on the national examinations. Today, she is a role model for not just girls, but everyone who may have been denied an opportunity for an education. We are proud that she is using her talents to inspire future leaders in her role as a Program Officer leading a lot of our programming work.

Check out some more bios of our team on our website.