Mothers and daughters.

As well as promoting girls' education, the Social Welfare Committee (SWC) is looking into ways of helping their mothers raise their standard of living so that they can become independent. A number of women have now had training in bamboo craft - bamboo grows locally and can be made into furniture, especially chairs, and also decorations. The women can then sell their work in the market and the SWC is currently looking into setting up a shop in the nearby market town of Lamahi.

These ladies arranged a meeting with me when I was last in the village. They were fascinated to know why you would want to sponsor their children and how you found out about the girls. They also wanted to know all about what we wear and what we eat, how the education system works in the West - and if it is true that it's night in Europe when it's day in Nepal! They had obviously thought a lot about their daughters' sponsors and they were very keen to thank everyone for their support. They were also very keen to stress that if they had been educated themselves, they would now be able to help their own daughters. They obviously felt quite strongly that they had missed out by not going to school; they speak a local language rather than Nepali, and so cannot even understand if their children read their schoolwork aloud.