Every Girl Can Dream: Ranju’s Story that Inspired This Project

Our lives are influenced by where we are born, the values of our family, and the community where we live.

Why Nepali Girls Don't Finish School

In Nepal, a small landlocked country in Asia, boys are valued more than girls. This is because boys are expected to support their parents as they grow old. The oldest boy will inherit the family home, often including the agricultural land used to support the family.

In contrast, girls are expected to live with their husband's family once they marry.

Parents are reluctant to pay for their daughters to complete their education because this will only benefit their husband's family. When they only have enough money to pay for one or two of their children to complete high school, they educate their sons.

It's hard to imagine how this custom affects girls, those who love school and learning and dream about being teachers, nurses, or scientists. What happens to them when their dreams go unfulfilled? What does their community and country lose when only half their children can live up to their potential?

Ranju's Story & My Inspiration

Ranju grew up in Dandagaun, a small Nepali village northwest of Kathmandu. Until recently, the only way to reach her home was to cross a footbridge and hike several miles up a lovely agricultural valley. Ranju's primary school had about twenty students, and beginning in sixth grade, she had to walk to the “big school”, Shree Mahendrodaya Kalika Secondary School.

Ranju was the youngest of five children. She had two older brothers and two older sisters who were 5 to 12 years older. Sadly, her father died while Ranju was a baby, leaving her mother to support the family through farming.

When Ranju's older brothers completed tenth grade at the big school, her mother decided to send them to a high school in Dhading Besi, one hour from home. Her mother needed to pay school tuition, housing, food, and travel home during school holidays.

Ranju's mother took her out of school when she was eleven to take over the work her older brothers normally did. She had to earn the money needed to pay for her brother's schooling. Sadly, the money Ranju earned was spent, but her brothers never completed high school, so there was no benefit to her work in the fields.

When Ranju's mother stopped paying money for her brothers to go to school, she went to live with her older brother in Chitwan, hoping to return to school. Ranju always dreamed of living a good life where she could earn money and care for her mother. She felt she needed to complete high school to achieve her dream, but unfortunately, her brother didn't support her goals. He made her work for him planting rice, cutting hay, and other common physical work on family farms.

Arranged Marriage at Age 16

A year later, Ranju returned home. Her mother wasn't comfortable supporting her, so she arranged her marriage at age sixteen. Even though the legal age for marriage in Nepal is 20 for both men and women, arranged marriages are common, and today, 37% of girls marry before the age of 18,

Ranju was 16, and her new husband, Gopi, was 23. He came from Gairigau, a nearby village, but they didn't know each other. Married life was challenging with a move to Kathmandu, a large city compared to Ranju's tiny village. She didn't know anyone and had trouble finding a job with her limited education.

Determined to work, she found a job at a beauty parlor to learn the trade but discovered she was pregnant after three months. After Ranju's son was born, she convinced Gopi that educating one child was more important than having several children who couldn't achieve their potential without education.

While people in the US are familiar with postpartum depression, when Ranju got migraine headaches and depression, she had no idea what was wrong. It took time to find the help she needed to overcome these challenges. She finally did turn things around … without medication, something she's very proud of.

More importantly, Ranju worked with a doctor and began to learn about herself. She took responsibility for her own life and let go of her negative feelings about her mother and siblings for not helping her more.

While her son was young, Ranju started teaching yoga to help other women build confidence while learning about themselves. When her son began school, she began to manage her husband's office operations for their trekking business.

Every Girl Can Dream

In 2015, Ranju and Gopi started the Cold Feet Foundation, which brings much-needed resources from global non-profits to the rural communities where they grew up. Many of these projects focus on education, such as the backpack project, school libraries, and college scholarships for girls.

While building webpages to share these projects with others, I realized I could do so much more by helping girls like Ranju remain in school through high school graduation. I've begun researching other programs in Nepal focusing on girls' education, and there are many. I'm learning that girls need more than just financial support and love the big sister “Didi” program used by the Rakmani program.

I plan to launch Every Girl Can Dream during my return trip to Nepal this fall. After meeting with key decision-makers in Dandagaun and finding women to facilitate the program, my goal is to select the first six girls for the program.

You're invited to join our global community, which supports girls in getting the education they deserve so they can turn their dreams into reality!