History of Nepal Deprived Women Uplift Center (NDWUC)
I, Mrs. Rajan Biswakarma, founder and chairperson of Nepal Deprived Women Uplift Center, Kathmandu, Nepal. I was born in a poor and uneducated family in Khotang, Nepal. My parents died when I was born. Neighbors helped me grow up to 12 years of age. There were two children where I was taken by a family who goes to school but I wasn’t allowed to go school due to lower cast. When I tried to go school, I was forcibly taken out and beaten badly because I was poor and lower cast. I was fallen apart and got unconscious for 3 hours because of heavy bleeding. So, I can’t fulfill my passion for study. Untouchability was very usual in my village. Lower cast people should work very hard for living. They don’t even survive when they do not work for upper caste people. I was compelled to live in such miserable situations where we were not able to talk face to face with other people, deprived from every good thing like food, clothing and schooling. Most of the land were captured by Upper caste people and we didn’t have land to farm. We must depend upon them to survive. This system in Nepal still exists and follows strongly in society. To fight with this very unfair discrimination I joined politics. Even I was not allowed to do politics freely and independently as women. I have faced very dangerous situation in my political career also. And now I am focused in social work. I have served many deprived women’s and children to get out of social discrimination and untouchability.
Although I couldn’t get proper education, I don’t want other women’s and children’s become uneducated. I had a great dream of getting knowledge but due to my lower caste and poor background I was completely deprived. Hence, I started focusing on those areas where every deprived and low caste people will get an opportunity for education. As English proverb says, “Where there is will, there’s a way”. Sometimes I used to learn from the boy with whom I was grown up. They used to go to school but I was not. I had learned some alphabets and letters from that boy who used to go to school with his help I could now promote social work and face the critical situation in my life. Even very few people would be able to face and survive at that situation. I think it was possible due to my strong desire and commitment to overcome such problems. These days I feel like if I had got an opportunity to study, I would have become a great person or renowned person which always awakes me in my life. I utilized the knowledge which I got on my political experience and started the movement called education for deprived women and children. As a result, now I have already taught 800 women and formed 400 groups. I taught every woman that if one woman is educated in the family the whole family is educated. I started giving training on different topics like leadership training, organic farming, stitching, and other skillful training like how to make a candle and sustainable development training etc. I have made a commitment to work among underprivileged children, deprived Women, orphanage children etc. I have been involved in this mission for 20+ years. I will have been continuing my mission towards deprived children, poor people, orphanage, lower cast upliftment, with the result of my belief.
In the year of 2001, I registered a non-profit organization with the title Nepal Deprived Women Uplift Centre, Kathmandu, Nepal. Now it has got 25 branches in different districts in Nepal. This organization specially focuses on two areas i.e. for Women leadership education and for children who are deprived from basic needs like food, education etc.
Rajan Biswakarma
Chairman
Nepal Deprived Women Uplift Center
Registration No: 141/058/59
SWC Reg. No. 10545
Why am I focusing on women in Nepal?
In each and every sector, men play a main role and women are in inferior position. The main cause of such vast differences is the lack of education and public awareness. Such differences start from the early period of males and females' life. In point of view of Nepalese people, females are regarded as a curse and males as boon. They do not like bearing female baby as they have to get her married and provide dowry. So, they take it as burden. That’s why, when they bear a boy and a girl, they give higher priority and more love to boy and the girl is kept within the four walls of home. Thus, no matter how talented they are, they never get a chance to develop. The condition of women living in our country is really miserable. Women living in our society are still under the shadow of darkness. They are bounded by the traditional concept of conservative society. They are busy mostly in kitchen and household works. Though, women occupy more population in Nepal, they have less participation in the high-level jobs and some other important matters related to their life. They can experience very few legal rights and even our society places them in an inferior position. This was often justified as being the result of biological differences between the sexes. Women were thought to be more emotional and less decisive than men. They are not given sufficient opportunities to improve themselves and are discouraged to go ahead. No matter whatever progress they make, they are still suppressed by this traditional society. Moreover, they are somehow experiencing basic rights, but they are deprived of social rights in many ways. Furthermore, they are regarded as the symbol of creating, protecting and nursing. They bear and grow-up children. They have many more responsibilities like biological, social and national. But, still their condition in our nation is backward. They are so because of male domination, traditional, social structures, unequal laws, lack of awareness, poverty and lack of government protection for them.
Women in our society have been confined only to household chores, rearing children, preparing food, collecting fodder for cattle and family sanitation. Especially, they do not have freedom for movement and for adopting job. They are deprived of higher studies and property rights. They are not encouraged for social exposure. Furthermore, they had been the victim of domestic violence from their husbands, brothers, mother-in-law and even relatives. Their appeal is not uprightly accepted even by the administrator. Sometimes, they are even beaten, kidnapped and killed. Hence, they are really living a sorrowful life. CBS (Central Bureau of Statistics) and the report of UNDP shows that women’s participation in developmental works of Nepal is of low grade. Their rate of involvement in different sectors like education, civil service, participation in teaching and legal practice is very low.