Convincing their peers to stay in Nepal rather than end up in slavery in Qatar

Nepal was ranked 5th on the recent Global Slavery Index. With over 45% of 16-24 year old Nepalis going overseas to work and many of these ending up in exploitative conditions, there is a serious problem to be addressed.

We asked class 10 at our model school, Riviera International Academy, to write a letter to a friend who was planning to go to Qatar for work (one of the most dangerous and risky countries in terms of slavery). It is their peers who are going, their rural cousins. It is the educated ones who can help prevent this by become job creators, by speaking out, by encouraging their peers to stay.

What we loved about their letters was their pride in being Nepali, their belief in their country. Patriotism like this is a wonderful strength - I really hope these young people continue to harness it for the future of their country.

Enjoy reading some of their letters below.

Happy Diwali - The Festival of Lights

Tihar, also known as Diwali, is my favourite festival. It is an opportunity to celebrate different animals, join with our communities to clean up and decorate to invite Laxmi, Goddess of Wealth into our homes, and to celebrate our Brothers and Sisters.

Sabitri Thapa, one of our class 11 students, shares more details about celebrating Tihar in Nepal.

Tihar

By Sabitri Thapa

Tihar is one of the main festivals of Hindus. It falls during the month of November. It is the festival of light. We can see various kinds of attractive lights all over the communities in Tihar. The environment looks so glamorous during Tihar.

 

It is celebrated for five days:

1. The first day is Crow Tihar. A person worships the crow and gives them special foods, putting tika on their forehead and garland around their neck. No matter how people hate crows, they worship them.
2. The next day is Dog Tihar. There are people who get irritated when hearing the name of dog but in Tihar everyone worships them. They worship the dog and give them foods to eat.
3. The third day is the day of goddess Laxmi. In this day people worships cow thinking them the next face of goddess Laxmi. People show their kindness to cows and give them foods to eat. In this day people play Bhaili. It’s one of the traditions that have been followed by our ancestors. So people still follows the tradition. People, especially girls wear different kinds of cultural dress and they roam all around the neighbors singing and dancing to get money. People do these things at night. We can see the number of groups in towns playing Bhaili. They sing and dance and earn money.
4. The next day is the day of ox. People worship them like they worship cows and dogs. This is also the day for boys like girls they play Deusi in this day. Some boys wear cultural dress as well. They also dance, sing and earn the money. This is the second last day of Tihar.
5. Finally the last day comes, bhaitika. All sisters put tika to their brothers and they give them presents as well. Brothers in return give money to their sisters. This is the end of Tihar festival.

This festival has both advantages and disadvantages as well. It’s a good thing to celebrate this festival on one hand as people at least respect the animals. They earn money and it is the only festival where people find more happiness as they play deusi bhailo to earn money on their own. People feel loved by their sisters and brothers on the day of bhaitika. They can spend as much time as they want with each other. It ties the relation of brothers and sisters.

Talking about the disadvantages, there are many. People get drunk crossing the limit as they are free to drink. They play fire crackers which may be the bad result for kids. Especially, teenagers, they throw the fire crackers wherever they want to and many people get injured. This is the evil habit of the wild teenager.

Tihar is one of the great festivals of Hindus. It should be celebrated but in a good way. It obviously needs to be preserved as well.