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dZi Foundation: | ||
| From July through September, 2006, we will be supporting dZi Foundation a US-based non-profit that is committed to helping indigenous mountain communities of the Himalayan region, with a focus on Nepal and Ladakh, India. Perhaps their signature project is their Friendship House in Kathmandu, Nepal, a safe home for young girls at risk of being trafficked into child labor or prostitution. | ||
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In 1997, dZi founders Kim Reynolds and Jim Nowak learned of a small safe house for girls, which was faltering financially and organizationally. Young girls in Nepal are at risk of being sold for child labor, "temple prostitutes", or into the Indian sex trade, ultimately being physically and/or sexually abused. Jim and Kim were instrumental in keeping the house funded, eventually relocating the home to a better facility and an all-Nepali staff.
The costs for the girls' sponsorships are $2000 per year. This includes all housing, food, clothing, medical, dental, in house staff, tutors, tuition, books, field trips. Everything is included to prepare these girls to be on their own. If their schooling allows them to attend college, dZi supports them until they have a job and are out of the house. If their schooling does not include secondary school, dZi trains them with a vocational skill so they can support themselves. In both “sister” homes the girls themselves become a family. Older girls supporting and looking after “younger” sisters who enter this new family situation overwhelmed. Whether it is homework, cleaning rooms or after dinner, a hug and a kind smile is as close as your big sister. Now in Kathmandu, the girls who have completed the cycle return to show the girls that hard work in school will pay off. This said, at both homes we are acutely aware that it is impossible to substitute for the influences of family and community. The home parents strive to expose each girl to their heritage with fieldtrips for festivals and constant exposure to the diversity of each individual culture. In addition a healthy portion of the curriculum focuses on instilling public service and of giving back to those less fortunate in specific communities. The constant thread through all educational sponsorship programs is "with privilege comes responsibility".
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Efforts and support continue for these girls. In fact, the program was able to move to a better neighborhood, and the girls were all enrolled in private schools. Five of the girls have shifted out of the original house and are in boarding schools working on their college degrees. This has allowed dZi Foundation to bring in new children to replace the young women who have graduated out of the house and are making the transition into their own self-sufficient lives in Kathmandu.