by Karma Loday

18 October 2008

Kathmandu, Nepal: To mark the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, 17 October, UNV and the children of Prayas staged a play on some of the causes of poverty and how we can work towards eradicating it.

Prayas ('Effort') is a local NGO that encourages Kathmandu's street children to come to their drop-in centre for shelter and food. The play was staged by successful street children of Prayas who are now enrolled in schools and leading a glue sniffing-free life.

Most of the spectators for the day were the other street children who are still sniffing glue and begging. It was also attended by Mr. Karma Loday, the UNV Programme Support Officer for the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN), UNV volunteers and representatives from other local NGOs

Mr. Suren Lama, the Programme Officer of Prayas, opened the play with a short speech on the importance of the day and its relevance to the goals of Prayas. The message was “the ultimate way out of poverty is through proper education”.

The play started off with a drunken father (whose wife had eloped) hitting his son for no reason. The son leaves the house out of frustration, and while in the streets he is encountered and mugged by some other street children. They coerce him to join their group to beg, and he ultimately takes up glue sniffing.

Two boys from Prayas, who are on their way back to the centre from school, come across this boy getting mugged and rescue him. They tell the boy about the Prayas drop-in centre and what it offers in return for giving up glue sniffing.

The boy joins Prayas and later decides to go back to his village, only to find his drunken father madder at him for running away. One of the staff who goes with the boy to the village talks to his father about Prayas. This ultimately convinces the drunken father to realize his mistakes; the father joins the rest to promote Prayas and discourage other parents from drinking and hitting their children.

The main intention of this effort was to educate children who are still in the streets of Kathmandu on some of the causes of poverty, how it ultimately leads to glue sniffing, and how Prayas can help them find their way out of it and avert poverty by going to school and getting education.

Recently UNDP Nepal granted Prayas some funds with a three-month mandate to get 10 children back to school, and also raise awareness on HIV/AIDS and educate other vulnerable street children. The role of UNV at this point is to assist Prayas in achieving its mandate by guiding them with best practices and building the capacity of staff members.

One of the crucial interventions at this stage is to attract more street children by promoting the drop-in centre, using UN special days to host events. This will allow Prayas to easily reach those children who are still out there and vulnerable to harsh realities, due to a lack of access to information and ignorance; this includes both children and parents.

For Universal Children’s Day on 20 November 2008, together with the UNDP Nepal Country Office we have planned a bigger stage show along with songs and plays related to poverty, substance abuse, HIV/AIDS and human rights. This time we are planning to invite representatives from other NGOs and UN agencies, plus family members. Our target is also to get glue-selling shopkeepers to come and watch, and to ask the media to come and cover the day.

This initiative is to educate the local community and, through volunteerism, raise awareness on the causes of the increasing number of street children, substance abuse, HIV/AIDS, and other poverty - highlighting Volunteerism for Development.

For International Volunteer Day on 5 December 2008, the UNV volunteers in Nepal have proposed a street cleaning campaign with volunteers from other local NGOs, UN agencies and governmental bodies. Amongst other things, this will also help highlight environmental issues.