AUW 09-001 StudentBro2:Layout 1 - Asian University for Women

Profiles of Courage
SIX WOMEN, ONE JOURNEY
Asian University for Women
20/A M M Ali Road
Chittagong – 4000, Bangladesh
Asian University for Women Support Foundation
1100 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 300
Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
www.asian-university.org

The Asian University for Women
Chittagong, Bangladesh
The Asian University for Women (AUW) is a leading institution
of higher education based on the firm belief that education—especially
higher education—provides a critical
pathway to leadership development, economic progress,
and social and political equality.
Located in Chittagong, Bangladesh, AUW provides a
world-class education to promising young women from
diverse cultural, religious, ethnic, and socio-economic
backgrounds from across Asia and the Middle East.
While international in its vision and scope, the University is
rooted in the unique context of the region. The Asian
University for Women offers an educational paradigm that
combines a liberal arts and sciences education at the
undergraduate level with graduate professional training in
the most urgently needed professions.
At the heart of the University, is a civic and academic goal
to cultivate successive generations of women leaders who
possess the mindset, the determination, the skills and
resources to address the challenges of social and economic
advancement of their communities. Adhering to the
belief that no group has a monopoly on talent, AUW is
committed to providing a superior quality higher education
to the region’s most promising young women, regardless
of background. Consequently, AUW recruits talented
students from poor, rural, and refugee populations who
receive scholarship support to attend the University alongside
those who do not need any economic support for
their education.
AUW recognizes that there are many young women across
Asia who possess exceptional talent, potential, and intellect,
but lack the financial means and foundational skills to
pursue a university education. The Access Academy is
intended for those women who are the first in their families
to enter university. It is a year-long pre -undergraduate
program that prepares these students for a rigorous university
education.
The University ultimately seeks to empower its students by
opening doors to new opportunities for making change. It
seeks to graduate students who will pursue paths as
skilled and innovative individuals and professionals, service-oriented
leaders, and promoters of tolerance and
understanding throughout the world. With a student body
of approximately 3,000 women at full capacity and a target
student to faculty ratio of 13:1, AUW is designed to
be a relatively small but diverse institution that will ensure
the full education of each student.
In the following pages, you will hear the stories of six
remarkable young women from the Access Academy as
recorded by Bonnie Shnayerson. Prior to her senior year at
the University of Pennsylvania in the United States, Ms.
Shnayerson spent a month in Chittagong and captured a
glimpse into their lives and world.
Indrani * , Sreymom Pol, Sunita Basnet, Nazneen, Shakina
Ismail, and Linda Gayathree each embody the spirit and
vision of AUW. Our mission is to provide them with the
tools they need to uncover their potential to change the
world.
*
Indrani’s name has been changed to protect her privacy.
3

From the Author
Bonnie Shnayerson
Within only a few days of visiting the Access Academy for
the Asian University for Women, I was a convert. Like so
many others, I was originally drawn halfway across the
world to Bangladesh by AUW’s goal to empower rural,
refugee and underprivileged women throughout Asia. The
hope is that these young women, armed with a top-notch
international education, will venture out into the world
and assume positions of leadership, creating a network of
strong, smart women across the continent that will transform
gender roles well beyond their lifetimes. It was
inspiring stuff. Although AUW was certainly compelling in
theory, I had yet to be convinced in practical terms that
any of this would be feasible. After spending only a couple
of days observing, interviewing and learning, however,
it became clear to me that AUW, even in its first chaotic
stage, had already begun to achieve what it was striving
for in the far future. I could not think of a better time to
have visited. I saw the school at a time when it was struggling
to stand on its feet, when things were still rough
around the edges and when every day brought a host of
new challenges. Yet it seemed to me that was precisely
the moment that the spirit of the institution was established.
And whatever the odds, they seemed to be getting
it right.
One of my most vivid memories of AUW will always be
the rehearsal that prepared for the imminent arrival of the
new head of the Academy. We were piled into a small hall
that doubled as the gym space. It was hot, even with the
fans on at full blast. The girls had been assembled to
practice a song in her honor under the watchful supervision
of Marion, a member of student government in possession
of a celestial singing voice. I had been pulled to
the front of the room by the school president after making
the mistake of mentioning I used to sing a cappella, so I
found myself in a perfect position to survey the girls. They
seemed not to notice the heat or the monotony as they
chatted and leaned against each other like they had been
friends for years.
Standing in a pool of sweat, I was relieved when the
rehearsal finally ended and the dean of students called for
everyone to sing the Access Academy song. As the familiar
notes rang out, the girls’ voices came together to form
one robust, united refrain. They sang of strength through
sisterhood, the breakdown of boundaries, and women
having the power to change the world. Gazing around the
room at their bright, upturned faces, I suddenly found
myself fighting back tears.
At that moment I understood very clearly what this university
would be in the future—indeed, what the Access
Academy had already become. It was about hope. Some
of these girls had been the first women in their villages to
go to university. Many of them had to battle pervasive
social stigmas and resistant family members to enroll. A
large number came from severely disadvantaged backgrounds.
When the Access Academy began in March, the
girls were timid, shy, and homesick. After a mere five
months under the tutelage of a small group of dedicated
WorldTeach volunteers, however, the girls had blossomed
into the confident young women I saw before me. Aware
of how much they had overcome to be sitting in that
room, I remember thinking that to observe their transformation,
to see the glow of confidence on their faces, was
like glow through association; one couldn’t help but be
brightened by it.
Five weeks of moments like those at the Access Academy
instilled in me the firm belief that AUW will grow into the
international university it aspires to become. One day
down the line, this university will open its doors to young
women all across the world. It will become a beacon of
hope in a region where women are repeatedly marginalized
and stripped of their voice. It was an honor to meet
this initial batch of women, volunteers and students alike,
who are paving the way for so many more to come. They
have been given the chance to succeed. Almost as importantly,
we have been given the responsibility and privilege
to witness it.
4

Indrani
Age: 22 Home
Country: Sri Lanka
At some point in my three hours of interviewing Indrani * I
began to cry. I was embarrassed, and even more so when
she apologized. It was absurd that she should feel guilt for
wounding my American sensibility with the reality of her
life. In my defense, it was her own tears that provoked
mine; on top of the hardships she was so calmly recounting,
it seemed too cruel, too unjust, to see tears gathering
in her eyes. Unlike me, however, she fought hers back and
kept talking.
Indrani was the first person to apply to AUW, but that fact
is far from her most distinguishing feature. She remains
the prototype of what AUW hopes to achieve in its ambitious
experiment to change the region, to catapult young
girls of impoverished, rural, and refugee backgrounds into
positions of leadership, giving voice to a silenced gender.
Many girls cite increased confidence as a result of their
five months at the Access Academy—one even claimed
her friends no longer recognized her, her gregariousness
that stark a change. Yet Indrani will always be removed
from the fray, quietly disengaging herself to stand at a distance
from the gripping banalities that so naturally form
the day-to-day lives of young girls. Clothes and boys are
of little interest to her. Indeed, Indrani has started telling
those who ask that she has a boyfriend at home, just so
she can be left to her thoughts. It is not that she lacks
confidence or is anti-social by nature, nor does she dislike
the company of those individuals in particular. Indrani is
simply twenty-two going on forty and cannot pretend otherwise.
A sorrow burns in her eyes, lit from within, and her
days are laced with worries that no one but her nineteen
Tamil classmates can ever understand. Skeptics may view
AUW’s mission as quixotic, but Indrani will become the
university’s greatest asset, its strongest proof that one
opportunity, one changed life, can become the change
felt by nameless more.
Indrani was born in Jaffna, Sri Lanka in 1986. Her family is
Tamil. Her father, an engineer, was killed before she was
born. Her mother has never quite been the same, refusing
to marry again and rejecting party invitations, or staying
on the fringe of family functions. She now works as a college
deputy principal and her son, Indrani’s older brother,
just graduated from university in the capital city of
Colombo. When Indrani was three years old, the family
moved from the southern province to the north, fleeing
the approaching Sri Lankan military.
Life in war-torn Jaffna was lived under the constant threat
of violence. Indrani wasn’t allowed to go to school by
herself and when she returned home in the afternoons,
her mother would make her go to an aunt’s house so
she wouldn’t spend time alone. Such precautions, overzealous
by many standards, are necessary in a city marked
by an ethnic conflict that rages unbeknownst to much of
the world.
The Sri Lankan Civil War started in 1983, but the ongoing
conflict is borne out of long-standing tension between
two of Sri Lanka’s predominant ethnic groups: the
Buddhist Sinhalese majority and the mainly-Hindu Tamil
minority. During British colonial rule, resentment arose
among Sinhalese toward the Tamils on the charge they
were the beneficiaries of British favoritism. Sinhala nationalism
blossomed after independence was achieved in
1948, bolstering the ethnic divide, and feelings on both
sides steadily grew more vitriolic until all-out war erupted
in the early ‘80s. Since then, most of the fighting has
taken place in the north between the Sri Lankan military
and the Tamil rebel group, Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam (L.T.T.E.). Yet violence is pervasive throughout the
island nation, as the Tamil Tigers’ devastating attacks in
Colombo during the 1990s and the recent killing of Sri
Lankan politician D.M. Dassanayak just outside the capital
in 2008 demonstrate. A cease-fire brokered by Norway in
2002 led many to hope for a long-lasting peace; continual
fighting on both sides, however, rendered that peace
agreement meaningless. In early 2008, the Sri Lankan government
extracted itself from the truce and the war
resumed in earnest.
Amidst this political turbulence Indrani managed to
become an excellent student. She notes with pride
that Jaffna is Sri Lanka’s most educated city with a
100% literacy rate, a feat that becomes more impressive
due to the constant disruption the war poses. When
Indrani was young, the Sri Lankan military captured
Jaffna, a Tamil hub.
Fighting meant electricity blackouts, and Indrani’s
government school remained open only on days there
was electricity, creating an educational environment that
was erratic at best. As Indrani puts it, “If I have electricity
today, I don’t have it tomorrow.” Frequent military
*
Indrani’s name has been change to protect her privacy.
5

oundups also displaced the family
from their home; for one or two
months at a time. Indrani, her
mother, and her brother would
escape to temples and other communal
spaces. It was a climate in
which “Anything can happen at any
time.” Although the family always set
aside money and dried food to prepare
for such events, they often had
to rely on the generosity of the local
NGO and people to provide for
them. Indrani was therefore in and
out of schools from a young age. In
fifth grade she only studied in school
for two months—despite this, she
got 23 rd rank in the country on her
A-levels. On top of her considerable
academic achievements, she also
mastered classical dance and music.
When asked how she juggled all her
commitments, she simply replies,
“I never waste my time.”
Learning in such a climate imbued
Indrani with a sense of injustice that
demanded action from a young age.
In seventh grade an orphan joined
Indrani’s class. Indrani was in charge
of collecting forty rupees from each
of her classmates, an extracurricular
fee that the government did not
cover, despite providing a free education
to most Sri Lankans. When it
was the new girl’s turn, she started
to cry, explaining to Indrani that she
had lost her entire family to the war
and couldn’t afford the forty rupees.
Indrani befriended the girl and visited
her orphanage where she met
one hundred orphans in all, many of
whom had been orphaned by the
violence. The visit left an indelible
mark on Indrani. She began to collect
money for the orphanage, saving
a portion of her allowance in a tin
every week. The night before her
birthday she opened the tin to discover
six hundred rupees. She smiles
as she describes how she went to the
orphanage the next day laden down
with savings and birthday money to
give to the children. It is a tradition
she has continued ever since. Indrani
decided early on that no matter what
she studied in school, “I [would]
emphasize my mind, works and
deeds and thoughts, everything,
through social work.”
Beyond her father’s death, which she
attests irreparably changed her
mother but left Indrani and her
brother, young as they were, relatively
unscathed, Indrani’s life has been
continually invaded by violence.
These frequent acts of violence
rocked Indrani’s already crumbling
world. “Why do we have to study?
This thing will happen to me also one
day,” she thought. But determination
to make a difference, to be a leader
and to help her people, overtook
fear, and learning gradually became
her weapon. It is with deep resignation
that she says: “Sometimes I feel
those things. I suffered. [But] we have
to accept everything on fate, or
destiny. What to do?”
In 2006, Indrani graduated from high
school and abandoned her love of
mathematics to pursue an internship
at a hospital, entertaining the possibility
of going to medical school
because as a doctor, she believed
she could help the most people. She
studied yoga and meditation, both
activities she now leads at AUW.
She also spent time in the hospital’s
psych ward, interacting with young
women her own age struggling with
mental illnesses, having lost husbands,
brothers, or fathers in the
war: “They didn’t [even] know how to
dress,” she notes. She would come
home in the evenings and feel lucky
for perhaps the first time in her life,
realizing, “I lost my father but I have
my mother.” Indrani was then
extended a coveted spot in the government
bank’s training program.
She trained for six months in Jaffna,
teaching kids at a local orphanage
on the weekends, before passing her
banking exam to place 13 th in the
entire country. She was subsequently
offered a place as a permanent
employee in the government’s bank
in Colombo—a prestigious position
for a girl barely 21-years-old. Her
mother was ecstatic, but her excitement
dwindled when Indrani applied
to AUW soon after. Citing the large
salary, Indrani’s mother berated her,
saying, “This is enough for you.
What’s the need to go [to AUW]?
Your brother will look after you if
you face any problems financially.”
But Indrani has never viewed money
as the goal—only the means to an
end—and the end she seeks has
little to do with material possessions.
She desires only the “inner beauty
of the people.”
Still, she is far from naïve, and recognizes
the importance of money in
6

achieving her objectives: “We have
to [first] think about the resources we
have, and we have to maximize those
resources,” she says. Indrani’s decision
to attend AUW was rooted in
her desire to know this world, to
“get more experience about this
life.” Only then did she feel she
could become an effective leader.
AUW has offered a respite from the
war that has come to define Indrani’s
existence. Within the Access
Academy walls, the ethnic divide that
has ravaged a country for decades
has rapidly dissolved. At home they
may be at war, but here, the Sri
Lankan students, nineteen Tamil and
eleven Sinhalese in all, are merely a
group of girls whose shared nationality
in a foreign place means instant
camaraderie. Both Tamil and
Sinhalese students are quick to identify
that Sri Lanka’s political parties
are responsible for this conflict, not
each other. The two groups seem to
make concerted efforts to circumvent
any inherent friction.
These friendships, however, are not
always immune to strain. Tamils have
borne the brunt of the war for
decades; the Sinhalese students, who
have been by and large sheltered
from the violence, can never truly
understand what life is like as a
Tamil. Like a soldier on leave from
war, Indrani also struggles to find a
place among girls from peaceful, stable
countries who know nothing of
her daily struggles, who “have everything,
just not the finances.” “How
can I explain?” she wonders, “They
couldn’t understand.” She and the
other Tamil students spend their
afternoons hastily checking the
Internet for any news from home,
looking for reports on the latest
suicide bomber, explosion, or raid,
and praying for those still there.
“Sometimes I can’t control my mind—
it goes to my home, to my mother,
my brother,” Indrani confesses. It is
perhaps a result of these worries that
Tamil students rarely complain about
the food or the heat, as other students
are apt to do: “This is more
than enough for us,” says Indrani.
Despite sometimes feeling alienated
from her classmates, Indrani is still
very involved with the community.
She and a few other students established
and now lead the community
service club. Every weekend the
group visits a different orphanage
in Chittagong; their latest project
involves taking homeless children
off the streets and teaching them.
Indrani is thrilled to be involved:
“I came here to study, it’s true, but
my main purpose is to do social
work,” she says. She wants to “know
the condition of here,” pointing to
the many differences between Sri
Lanka and Bangladesh. She has also
made rapid strides in mastering
English. Before enrolling in the
University, Indrani knew very little of
the language, having always been
taught in her native tongue.
When I give Indrani a hug at the end
of the interview, her compact, athletic
body relaxes only momentarily
before pulling away, speculating
aloud how many people have died in
her country during the course of our
conversation. “More than seven people,
maybe,” she thinks. Her voice
rises as she tries one last time to
make the American understand the
“real condition of existence” for
Tamils in Jaffna. She says, “We have
to accept. If we go outside we don’t
know what will happen to us. That’s
why we have a habit to talk about
God. Mentally they want to weaken
us. But they can’t… day by day it’s a
normal thing for us.”
For a young woman who yearns to
learn how to lead, Indrani’s innate
wisdom and quiet confidence ensure
she is already well on her way.
7

Linda Gayathree
Age: 19
Home Country: Sri Lanka
“Once upon a time there was a very beautiful house
covered with coconut trees and beautiful flower pots.
There was a very beautiful sea beach in front of the
house. This house… belong[ed] to a nice family. Every
day they started their lives with beautiful sceneries. Cool
sea winds kissed them when they opened their windows.
Dancing coconut trees tried to show a beautiful scene
for them. At sunset they used to take their tea break.”
“This house was mine.”
The day the sea came alive with vengeance, the world
was silent. A gloomy pall draped itself over the canopy
of the Sri Lankan sky as birds and insects muffled their
morning chatter, but attacked their activities with renewed
zeal. The air felt heavy as nature’s most destructive forces
steadily gathered strength off shore. Linda Gayathree
awoke that day in the house she loved, with the parents
she adored, next to the sea she worshipped, and instantly
noted the change. “I thought the sea had forgotten to
wake up because it was so still,” she remarks. She
watched the scurrying animals and insects and pondered
their sudden frenzy. “I tried to understand them,” she
says, “but [they] just left me confused.” It was
December 26 th , 2004.
Linda grew up on the coast of Sri Lanka’s island nation in
the southern province. Her small house was built right on
the sand, and she spent an idyllic childhood playing along
golden beaches that have been called some of the most
beautiful in the world. Her mother was a housewife and
her stepfather supported her, Linda, and Linda’s younger
sister, with his modest earnings as a fisherman. The family
was so tightly knit that Linda rarely ventured outside her
home without her mother. Even a simple shopping trip
involved her mother’s caring supervision.
Not surprisingly, Linda is unusually affectionate—a girl
whose desire to give love and be loved is immediately
apparent. But she is also quick, driven, and articulate. Her
passion for literature and her instinctive feel for words—
even in a second language—transform her written prose
into near-poetry. She approaches her studies with a grave
seriousness that ensured her superior performance in Sri
Lanka’s competitive education system.
The day the sea rose, Linda showered and dressed as
usual for school, despite the scent of danger in the air. As
a devout Buddhist, Linda would pray to Buddha and
receive her mother’s blessings over breakfast every morning
before leaving the house. But when Linda walked into
the kitchen, she discovered her mother standing as still as
the ocean she stared at, her eyes trained on the hushed
landscape. She turned to her eldest daughter and ordered
her to stay home that day, describing the atmosphere as
“not good.” Linda, always the dedicated student, ignored
her mother’s precautions. For the first time in her life, she
went off to school with neither breakfast nor her mother’s
blessing, the ritual smothered in the silence hanging
between a mother and her disobedient daughter. The
time was 9:35 AM.
Linda walked the short distance to the bus stop to discover
it eerily empty. She was waiting for her friend
Supuni—“because I never went [to] classes without
Supuni”—when she heard shouting. A boy ran by, calling
to her: “‘Sister, the sea is coming, please run!’” As the
words tumbled from his mouth, frothing seawater came
gushing in a torrent down the street. The “white color sea
waves” coursed toward Linda, trying “to kiss my legs,” as
shock and fear rooted her to the spot. “I forgot what I was
doing there. I couldn’t do anything,” she says. Out of
nowhere, Supuni appeared and grabbed Linda’s hand,
pulling her into a run. It was utterly bewildering to see the
sea in the streets. “I was unable to think what had happened,”
Linda recalls. “I’m so confused but I ran.”
8

Wading through the swirling waves,
Supuni and Linda found their way to
a nearby boys’ school. They took
shelter in the building as the storm
raged outside. “We were safe for
now,” Linda says, “but we didn’t
know what had happened to our
families.”
This was no ordinary storm. A
tsunami, unleashed by the fifthlargest
earthquake in a century, had
crashed into the coast of Sri Lanka. 1
An undersea tremor that became a
magnitude 9.0 earthquake on the
floor of the Indian Ocean had triggered
a series of devastating
tsunamis across the coasts of southern
Asia. Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India,
and Thailand were the hardest hit.
One of the deadliest natural disasters
in history, the December 26 th tsunami
was responsible for the deaths of tens
of thousands of people across eleven
countries. Indonesia suffered the
most casualties with a death toll of
242,347. Sri Lanka came in second
with 30,974 dead and another
100,000 displaced. 2
The day crawled by without any contact
between Linda and her family. As
each further hour passed without any
sign of her parents, Linda became
more certain they had been killed.
Her parents, after taking refuge in
her grandparents’ home, were
equally convinced of her death.
“They searched me among all the
dead bodies,” Linda says with traces
of horror and sadness. Within less
than twelve hours, 2,000 corpses had
already been collected at the hospital.
“Fortunately,” Linda says, “I leave
with my life.”
By six in the evening, Linda felt brave
enough to look outside. Venturing
out onto the fifth-floor balcony of the
boys’ school, she spied a man who
resembled her uncle. Closer inspection
revealed that he was indeed her
relative—but “he looked like a mad
man,” she notes. Shouting and crying,
Linda ran to him. As she came
bounding down the stairs, he fainted.
“He never thought I live,” Linda says.
He had spent the entire day sorting
through rubble and staring into the
bloated faces of the dead in search
of his niece.
The storm had severed all phone
connections, preventing Linda from
reaching the rest of her family.
Anxious to end their worries, she and
her uncle quickly set out for home
only to discover the roads blocked
by bodies. It was impossible to walk.
They had to resort to the long way
back, picking their way home along
jungle paths.
When they finally reached Linda’s
grandparents’ home, “My poor
mother’s face bloomed like a flower.
She kissed me a lot,” Linda recalls.
Her neighbors rejoiced as well; the
close community had already begun
to fast in mourning. “[My neighbors]
love me a lot; I think I am a good
girl, that’s why,” Linda says.
The family gathered together to
exchange their stories, showering
each other with hugs and kisses.
When the tsunami first hit, Linda’s
mother, a small woman, had closed
the door against the waves, securing
the house as best she could before
running. Linda’s uncle found her
fighting against the water and carried
her to the grandparents’ house
nearby. At that point, as Linda tells it,
her father was far out to sea on his
fishing boat. After learning about the
tsunami from satellite images, he
feared the worst. Overcome with
grief, he swallowed a cocktail of the
drugs he always carried with him
after suffering a recent heart attack.
Linda’s eyes begin to water at this
point in the story. “I think my father’s
the gift of god,” she says. “I love him
very much.” Her father survived the
dose, fortunately, and made it back
to shore to reunite with his family.
“In my life, I
firmly believe
that I have some
extraordinary
talents to do
something
constructively for
others. If I get an
opportunity at
AUW, I hope I
could easily fulfill
my dreams.”
1
Department of Census and Statistics, Sri Lanka, accessed at http://www.statistics.gov.lk/Tsunami/ on August 26, 2008. Last updated on December 22, 2005.
2
CNN, “Tsunami Death Toll,” accessed at http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/28/tsunami.deaths/ on August 26, 2005, posted on February 22, 2005.
9

The months following the tsunami
were challenging for the Gayathree
family. Although they counted themselves
among the lucky ones, the sea
had still washed away their house
and all their possessions. The family
was forced to move into Linda’s
grandparents’ house, living alongside
her grandfather, grandmother,
three uncles, aunt, father, mother,
and younger sister. The house consisted
of only two rooms. To make
matters worse, the tsunami hit on
the eve of Linda’s Advanced-Level
(A-Level), the nation-wide qualification
exam to graduate from high
school. It was hard to find a place
to study and even harder to get a
good night’s sleep. With pride,
Linda describes not only passing
her A-Levels, but doing very well.
She was offered a place at one of
the best management universities
in the country. The government
eventually donated a new house to
her family in a rural area, but Linda
says, “It’s not like our home. It’s too
small. Now we haven’t our beautiful
sceneries, especially our sea.”
Her performance on the A-Levels, so
soon after the tsunami, was nothing
less than a triumph. With death at
the door and her country in pieces,
Linda managed to sustain academic
excellence. Soon after, she was
offered a place at AUW. “I never
think I can do these things,” Linda
says. “But I did it.”
10

Nazneen
Age: 20
Home Country: Pakistan
Some of the most important decisions we face, we face
alone. These are the decisions that go against our parents’
wishes or diverge with cultural norms. They are also the
decisions that force us to define who we are, and who we
are to become.
For twenty-year old Nazneen, enrolling in the Asian
University for Women was one such decision. Nazneen
grew up in a poor, remote village in the Hunza Valley, a
mountainous area in northern Pakistan near the Chinese
border. When she was a child, the village houses were
made of mud, there wasn’t enough food to eat, and she,
along with her neighbors, drank water from the nearby
stream. It was only with the development of a historical
site, the Altit Fort, that the village began to prosper, and
amenities like running water, brick buildings, roads,
schools, and a government hospital were introduced into
the area.
The gender disparities confronting Nazneen in Pakistan’s
education system were formidable. According to a 2004
estimate, the Pakistani government spends only about 1
percent of its GDP on education. Chronic underinvestment
in education has led to an overall literacy rate of
49.9 percent and an adult female literacy rate of only 36
percent. In contrast, the male literacy rate is 63 percent
(2005 census) 1 . The gap between gender literacy rates has
increased in past decades, despite the government’s best
efforts to launch educational initiatives aimed at closing it.
Gender disparities in education have been further
widened by cultural norms: women are expected to adopt
traditional roles within the family that severely restrict
mobility and access to the public sphere. 2
Nazneen is the daughter of a farmer who also works as a
laborer-by-hire in construction. Her mother operates a
small tailoring business out of their home that allows her
to also take care of the family. The two parents stretched
their income to send six of their seven children to school;
Nazneen, the eldest, became the exception after winning
a scholarship to study in an English medium school. Her
college was in a distant neighboring village, and with no
transportation system to speak of, Nazneen rose early
every morning to walk the long distance. After walking
home in the afternoons, she tutored thirty young students
in her home for three or four hours, then helped her
mother with dinner, and finally turned to her studies. Like
most of the people in the Hunza Valley, Nazneen is an
Ismaili Muslim, a breakaway Shia sect that follows the
teachings of the spiritual leader His Highness Prince Karim
Aga Khan IV.
Nazneen heard about AUW and its offer of full scholarships
from Aga Khan Culture Services Pakistan, the NGO
she had joined. Prince Karim Aga Khan heads an organization
called Aga Khan Development Network that does
good works around the world. Its many branches in
Pakistan include the NGO Nazneen worked for, which was
involved with the Altit Fort restoration in her region.
Nazneen was responsible for overseeing their interns.
Upon learning about AUW, Nazneen told nobody but her
parents. She alerted them that she planned to take the
test, but offered no further specifics. She went through the
entire application process without breathing a word to
anyone else in her village—friends, relatives, and neighbors
remained oblivious to her standing on the cusp of
change. When she learned of her acceptance, Nazneen
sought advice from the most educated members of her
community, her teachers and the NGO: “They told me
what is right, and what is good for me. And I believed
them.” She confided in only these select few, apparently
fearing that others in her village might disapprove and
somehow force her to give up her emerging plan.
The quiet determination necessary to remain silent on
such a decision offers a glint of something harder beneath
Nazneen’s girlish surface. When she speaks, her English is
inconsistent at best and these frequent mistakes unleash
cascades of giggles. Her admission of secrecy seems out
of place for a person whose jovial laughter punctuates
every conversation. But it’s there, in the quiet lull of her
voice as she describes the obstacles posed by cultural
expectation, so pervasively interwoven into the fabric of
Pakistani life, her strong, carved features studying the
1
CIA World Factbook, Pakistan, accessed at https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/pk.html on August 25, 2008, last updated
August 21, 2008.
2
Coleman, Isobel, “Gender Disparities, Economic Growth and Islamization in Pakistan,” Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, July 2004.
Accessed at http://www.cfr.org/publication/7217/gender_disparities_economic_growth_and_islamization_in_pakistan.html, August 4, 2008.
11

“After getting
education I can
help with my six
siblings. I can
support them
to study at
institutions, so
they can do
something for
others; in this
way, we can
do something.”
floor. For a brief moment, before her
face rearranges like puzzle pieces
and the giggling ensues, one
glimpses the demeanor of a grown
woman.
Nazneen finally told her village. In all
likelihood, she told just a few relatives,
but as she notes, “If we say
one thing in our home, the whole village
knows.” There was an immediate
outcry. Friends, relatives, and
neighbors all objected, but Nazneen
remained steadfast. She explains,
“Other people were uneducated,
they can’t know. They just say there’s
conflict [between Pakistan and
Bangladesh], and it’s a poor country,
but they don’t know the importance
of education.” Nazneen had anticipated
these reactions and arranged
accordingly. The Aga Khan NGO she
worked for helped her secure her
passport and visa before she went
public with her decision. When her
uncles, who wielded considerable
power in the village’s tribal system,
ordered her to stay at home, she
was already one step ahead of them.
“They refuse me,” she says, “but
they can’t do anything.”
The enormity of what she had done
hit Nazneen on the plane to
Bangladesh, her first time outside
Pakistan. She admits she cried the
whole way (and for the next three
months). Yet an unexpected and new
community awaited Nazneen: her
religious sect, predominant in the
hills of her valley, had made its way
to Chittagong. With the help of
Kamal Ahmad, she discovered an
Ismaili center, and once the community
was alerted to her presence —
“They know I’m here, a religious girl
is living in Chittagong”—she was
quickly welcomed into its folds.
She enthusiastically attended the
programs and met the center’s members,
many of them also from different
countries. In the spring, Prince
Karim Aga Khan IV visited Dhaka at
the invitation of the Bangladeshi
Government. The visit enabled the
Prince to forge a relationship with the
groundbreaking of a school he had
founded. The Ismaili center sponsored
a trip to Dhaka to bear witness
to this occasion. Nazneen stayed in
the program director’s house for a
week in the capital during which, she
recalls with a mischievous smile,
“They spoiled me.” She also
attended a banquet in the Prince’s
honor, where she was seated near
members of the government and
some of the Prince’s most devout
followers who had trailed him from
India. It was a unique opportunity
for Nazneen. The Prince now lives in
Paris and seldom visits Pakistan,
maybe once every ten years. “We
get this kind of chance very rarely,"
she says. "We are his followers and
we respect him.”
AUW has also been an experiment
in religious diversity for Nazneen.
Religious beliefs are strictly homogenous
in her home region: faith begins
and ends with Ismaili Islam. Until
AUW, she had never before met
anyone of a different religion. She
was relieved to discover that all
the students follow their separate
customs in peace: “We all say our
prayers in our own styles, it does
not create a problem,” she says.
12

Although she misses her village and
can only speak to her parents every
two weeks because the phone calls
are too expensive, Nazneen claims
that the teachers have made AUW
home. One hundred and thirty girls,
plus faculty and administrators, study,
work, and live in close proximity on
ten floors. Despite the possibility
of conflict, she says, every person
“acts like our family member.”
Nazneen’s real family members
tend to be less welcoming. Since
she arrived at AUW five months ago,
her uncles have refused to speak to
her. Her mother bears the brunt of
their anger. They hold her responsible
for allowing Nazneen to leave the
home and disgrace the family within
the community. She reveals little to
Nazneen about the gravity of the
situation. Nazneen only knows:
“They are not good with her.”
Despite pressures that continue to
radiate across country borders,
Nazneen cherishes the opportunity
AUW has presented her and her family.
“I feel happy because if I was
[home], it would become difficult
for me to study there because my
parents weren’t able to continue my
education,” she says. She plans to
pass on the gift of free education
in the future, using her degree to
support her four brothers and two
sisters as they go through school,
while taking the burden off her parents.
“After getting education I can
help with my six siblings. I can support
them to study at institutions,
so they can do something for others;
in this way, we can do something.”
She hopes to empower women in
her village, working to improve the
accessibility of education by offering
more scholarships from a position
of leadership in her village’s school
system. Nazneen points to the AUW
teachers as inspiration. Because of
them, she says, “We get courage.
I want to do the same.”
13

Shakina Ismail
Age: 19
Home Country: Bangladesh
Shakina Ismail was already standing outside by the time
her guests started to filter through the Access Academy’s
double glass doors. She squinted in the brilliant
Bangladeshi sunlight—the trip had fallen on the only day
of clear skies in the past two weeks. Evidently the monsoon
season had arrived. She was dressed in her best,
her shalwar kameez an electric turquoise and pink combination,
embroidered with sequined flowers she had
designed and sewed herself. Her face, normally bare,
was flushed with makeup, her eyes defined with a dark
pencil behind her rimless glasses and her lips shaded
a rich maroon.
Shakina grew up in a poor village outside of Chittagong
city, one of Bangladesh’s largest cities and its primary
seaport. Her village lies off the main highway that snakes
from the bustling innards of the city, past the lush green
rice paddy fields of the countryside, to a small town where
her father earns his living. Here he sells umbrellas in the
rainy season and religious outfits out of a small shop. A
turn down the narrow street that leads to Shakina’s village
offers an instant haven from the havoc of the main road.
The path is lined with low-hanging palm trees and the
traditional Bangladeshi house, a seemingly fragile structure
made of interwoven sticks. Cows and their herders,
villagers, rickshaws, and the occasional CNG (threewheeler
taxi), pass down this street.
The village itself represents the way many Bangladeshis
live in rural areas. Children bathe in the same pond that
women wash their clothes in. The pond is straddled by
paths that lead to a small primary school, a simple building
that nevertheless shows signs of development in
recent years. A water pump provides water to the villagers.
Towering haystacks flanked by tall trees feed the
often-emaciated cow that some of the wealthier families
own. Children play barefoot and tend to be clothed in
very little, their parents unable to afford new clothing.
Education has declined; the pressure to earn money and
feed one’s family is more urgent than learning. As Shakina
notes, “the majority of my relatives and neighbors are
not educated. They are not conscious of education.”
During the car ride to her village, Shakina answered a
steady stream of phone calls from her family, doling out
instructions in rapid Bangla. It was, after all, a momentous
occasion. A handful of AUW faculty members, visitors, and
the world-renowned photographer Shahidul Alam were
accompanying Shakina to her home to document the
background of a typical AUW student. The villagers had
prepared for days—outsiders, especially foreigners, rarely
visited the area. Shakina sat in the back of the van like a
colorful bird preening her feathers, her chest puffed up
with pride. The significance of this event, honoring a
daughter’s homecoming instead of the son’s, was not
lost on us.
Shakina has a studious look, the air of someone who has
spent little time outdoors and is happiest poring over a
book. She credits her parents for instilling her with a love
of learning that has in turn generated a wealth of academic
achievements. Unlike many other parents in the
village, Shakina’s parents, “not so educated” themselves,
have always valued the importance of schooling their
children, including their daughters. Shakina is the eldest
of two sisters and one brother. Despite considerable
scorn from relatives and neighbors alike, her parents have
always made the financial sacrifices necessary to give
Shakina every possible schooling opportunity, including
expensive private tutoring. The villagers loudly criticized
Shakina’s parents for such decisions. “They always tease
my parents, [saying], ‘why are you spending money on
your daughters. You should just marry them,’” Shakina
notes.
Shakina’s father is one of the wealthier men in the village;
umbrellas and religious objects apparently sell well in
a rainy country beset by cruel floods. Shakina’s mother
is a housewife. Her family, along with her grandparents,
uncles, and aunts, live in a concrete compound with an
impressive metal gate, a notable exception to the village’s
wooden houses. They also have their own cow. This
wealth, however, is only relative to the poverty of the
other villagers. Shakina remains one of AUW’s most underprivileged
students. The fact that her parents squander
whatever financial edge they may enjoy on education
14

aises rankles among their neighbors.
But Shakina’s parents simply say:
“We don’t want a big house or a
big car. We just want to settle our
daughters so they can do something
for society.”
Shakina attended primary school on
a government scholarship until class
five, and then passed an examination
to become the first student to win a
scholarship from this particular school
in thirty years. She went through
class six and seven on scholarship,
and won another scholarship for
high school in class eight. She
earned yet another scholarship to
study at one of the top colleges in
Chittagong before being accepted
on full scholarship to AUW.
By the time the van pulled into
Shakina’s village, a large crowd of
children had gathered. A pack trailed
us throughout the day; amusement
and curiosity were written all over
their faces. Shakina fluttered ahead,
greeting family and friends. She led
us to her primary school where uniform-clad
school children showered
her with flower petals and the head
of school gave her a bouquet. The
principal also pointed out Shakina’s
name, inscribed on a plaque that was
featured prominently in her office.
Shakina then arrived to her house
to find a feast of fruit, hot dishes,
pastries, and desserts waiting. Aunts,
uncles, sisters, cousins, and of
course, her proud parents, crowded
into the small living room to eagerly
ply their guests with food. Neighbors
observed from atop their roofs and
children crouched underneath the
compound’s gate to catch a glimpse
of the gathering. It was, needless to
say, a celebrity’s welcome.
Shakina first heard about AUW from
her father while she was studying for
her medical exam. She had attended
only ten classes at her Chittagong
university by this point. She remembers
her first reaction to AUW. “It
was near from Foy’s Lake,” she
recalls, giggling. “I was so happy, I
don’t know why, [but] I’ll apply to
that university.” Foy’s Lake is
Chittagong’s one and only amusement
park. Her interest mounted as
she went through the application
process—the day she heard back
from the University was spent in a
state of breathless suspense. She
accepted her offer from AUW after
failing her medical exam. Her parents,
having groomed her to be a
doctor her entire life, now say it was
fate she failed; it allowed her to
come to AUW.
“Women are always neglected, if they’re
educated or not… I think if a girl who has a
good career like a boy, then never a boy
can torture her. Boys can get an opportunity
to study, but girls can’t – they get married.
Boys criticize girls easily. I think if I can show
something for girls, then I think they will
realize women can do like a boy.”
Since enrolling in the Access
Academy, Shakina’s interests have
shifted to environmental science and
information technology. She plans to
choose the subject that will be the
most beneficial to her country. “I
want to be one of the top students
at AUW,” she says. She has also
embraced karate as an extracurricular,
calling all self-defense classes
“very necessary for women. At least
we feel we are more strong.” After
earning her international degree,
Shakina plans on coming back to
work in her country, particularly in her
village: “I want to do something for
women especially.”
Shakina identifies education as the
tool that will transform the gender
roles maintained by an older generation.
Her father, for all his encouragement,
used to tell Shakina: “You are
not my daughter, you are my son.’
Her uncle, aunts, and grandparents
were all against sending Shakina to
university. Now, Shakina’s younger
sister, aged 18, plans to follow in her
sister’s footsteps and apply to AUW.
It seems the precedent has been set.
“Women are always neglected, if
they’re educated or not,” Shakina
says. “I think if a girl who has a good
career like a boy, then never a boy
can torture her. Boys can get an
opportunity to study, but girls can’t—
they get married. Boys criticize girls
easily. I think if I can show something
for girls, then I think they will realize
women can do like a boy.”
15

Sreymom Pol
Age: 18
Home Country: Cambodia
A haze of traffic and people swirled around 17-year-old
Sreymom Pol. She was standing in the streets of Phnom
Penh, luggage in hand, having just arrived in the capital
after a journey of 140 kilometers from her village in the
Cambodian countryside. It was the farthest from home she
had ever traveled and her dark brown eyes grew wide
staring at the strange cityscape. As the recipient of a government
scholarship to study chemistry, Sreymom had
looked to the few girls from her village who had preceded
her to the city: “I saw that they can go study by themselves,
so I think maybe I can.”
Yet life in Phnom Penh was not easy for a teenager, the
baby of the family, who was living apart from her mother
and sisters for the first time. In the first month, Sreymom
lived ten kilometers away from her college, braving the
hectic city streets every day by bicycle. She was soon
awarded a housing scholarship that allowed her to stay in
dorms nearer to the college, but the scholarship provided
her with only a place to sleep—not food. Sreymom’s
mother therefore began sending her daughter dried meals
from the village by taxi. Each carefully packed parcel fed
Sreymom for a week. As if her new surroundings weren’t
foreign enough, Sreymom applied three months later for
still another scholarship, one that took her even farther
away from the life she knew—to a foreign country she had
never envisioned visiting, much less spending the next six
years. All this for an education most in her village believed
would be wasted on a girl.
Slightly over five feet tall, Sreymom seems younger and
more innocent than her 18 years. Her jolly disposition is
masked in a demure, even doleful demeanor, yet it takes
only one conversation, one burst of contagious laughter,
for the façade to crumble. Her face cracks a smile, and
like sunshine melting shadows, she is transformed. Her
full, baby cheeks grow rounder, her button nose wrinkles,
and her eyes crease with laughter, all but disappearing in
the mirth of the moment.
As a child, Sreymom lived along with her three sisters and
brother, parents, and grandparents, in a small house in a
small village. The village had a market where Sreymom’s
mother supported her family selling goods. Her father
worked as a teacher. The family separated from her grandparents
when Sreymom was five, her parents moving their
children to a bigger village with more opportunities. Like
their former home, this village also consisted of simple
wooden houses, but a thriving market and busy roads
reflected a growing population. Most of the villagers
made a living in agriculture, working as either rice or
watermelon farmers. After the move, Sreymom’s mother
stopped working in the market and instead sold rice out
of a small shop in front of their home, giving her more
time to take care of the children. Sreymom’s father abandoned
his teaching career to become a musician, traveling
over thirty kilometers every night by motorcycle to play
organ in the Kampong Thom province. Growing up,
Sreymom was very close to her father, who constantly bolstered
her through many ups and downs in school. She
describes him as “full of love and mercy.” When he died
of high blood pressure in February of 2005, Sreymom was
15. His death, she says, changed everything.
The morning Sreymom’s father died, he told her: “You are
big enough so you can promise me that you won’t make
someone worry about you, especially your mom.” Those
were his last words to her. After he died, Sreymom admits
she no longer wanted to study. “My father always encourage
me so I just try, try, try,” she recalls. “But when he
died, no one want to see my future, why [would] I try?”
It was a difficult time for the Pol family. People in the
village gossiped about Sreymom’s mother, speculating
she wouldn’t be able to feed her five children. They
predicted that “everything would be down, down in my
family,” Sreymom says, because a family with only one
son faced a bleak future. “They looked down on my
mother. They [always] look down on the family that has
a lot of daughters.”
Both food and money were scarce as Sreymom’s mother
scrambled to feed her children with her meager earnings
from the store in front of their home. After Sreymom saw
how hard her mother had to work to put that day’s meal
on the table, she recalled her father’s last words and
resolved to ease her mother’s worries. The villagers’
16

digs fell on her ears like sharp hail;
they also drove her to act. “I think I
will make her feel happiness,” she
decided. “I will do my good future
for her.”
Sreymom excelled in school, earning
her government scholarship for college
in Phnom Penh in 2007 and
then a place at the Asian University
for Women. Her mother was proud
of her daughter’s acceptance at an
international university, recognizing it
as a rare opportunity to get “high
knowledge abroad.” She was also
terrified at the prospect of sending
her youngest to a poor, strange
country characterized by natural disasters.
Sreymom’s relatives fretted as
well—her aunt informed her that all
Muslim men would be rapists.
Sreymom herself feared that AUW’s
unusual mix of diverse religions
might interfere with her own belief in
Buddhism.
Sreymom ultimately accepted her
offer from AUW and now lives in a
room with four other girls from countries
all across Asia. She has since
been intimately exposed to a melting
pot of cultures and religions—her
recent 18th birthday illustrates the
transformation. The day had passed
rather uneventfully. It was nearing
midnight and Sreymom was lying in
bed in her dorm room, miserable
and homesick. She yearned for her
mother and the birthday celebrations
of her childhood, surrounded by
loved ones and village friends. When
she heard knocking at the door she
feigned sleep, too depressed to face
visitors. Her roommates barged in
anyway and dragged her downstairs
to a darkened classroom. The room
suddenly erupted with light, and
Sreymom was dazzled by a chorus of
classmates serenading her with an
English version of Happy Birthday.
The group represented all sorts of
Asian cultures and beliefs, a mixture
of Sri Lankans, Bangladeshis,
Nepalese, and Cambodians.
Sreymom glows as she recounts
the story, saying, “I’m really surprised.
I think all of them are really good
for me.”
Although she still struggles with
homesickness, and her mother still
worries about her in a foreign country,
Sreymom has made a place for
herself at AUW. Now, when her
mother calls, she says laughing, “I
just tell her than I’m fatter than
before.” She also extols AUW’s academic
demand. “Even the small
things we need to think about,” she
notes a bit begrudgingly, reminding
us that even the best and the brightest
can occasionally still sound like
typical teenagers. Sreymom plans to
use her degree to become a chemistry
engineer and work in public
health. She wants to provide clean
water to people in her country; when
she was growing up, many people in
her village had to resort to pond
water.
But perhaps the most valuable
aspect of being at AUW for Sreymom
has been defying expectation. She
explains, “My mother always said she
didn’t have anything to give me. She
had no money, nothing; she just
found money for one day at a time.
‘So you must try yourself,’ [she said].”
As a student at AUW, every day she
works to stay true to her father’s
words. Furthermore, she has dealt a
resounding blow to the predictions
of her gossiping neighbors: “They
think the women can’t do anything—
they just stay at home, do a little
thing to earn some money. It’s not
like the son; daughters can’t earn
money far away and support the
home.” She pauses and her rounded
face dawns with wonder: “I have
destroyed that thought.”
“[My neighbors]
think women
can’t do anything
– they just
stay at home,
do a little thing
to earn some
money. It’s not
like the son;
daughters can’t
earn money
far away and
support the
home… I have
destroyed that
thought.”
17

Sunita Basnet
Age: 22
Home Country: Nepal
The first time I met Sunita Basnet, she was calmly picking
a cockroach’s carcass off the floor as girls around her
shrieked and fled for higher places. The offending insect
had appeared moments before, dissolving a room full of
young women—otherwise rational and capable beings—
into near-hysterics, as only the enlarged, winged,
Bangladeshi breed of cockroach can do. Without a
moment’s hesitation, Sunita had walked right up to the
bug and with a loud crunch, squelched it beneath her
sandal. She proceeded to scoop up the juicy remains and
saunter past us, waving crushed tentacles in front of our
faces with a smirk as we crowded out of her way. Her look
said it all. “You bunch of city girls,” she seemed to be
saying, “This is nothing.”
Sunita grew up in a remote village of about five hundred
people in the Tarai area of Nepal, north of the capital. She
is the eldest of five sisters and one brother; she and her
five siblings live with their parents and grandmother in
one house. Although no longer working, her father used
to support his large family as a farmer. They live on a small
plot of land that yields just enough crops to feed the nine
of them. Sunita’s mother had very little schooling as a
child, but Sunita and her father taught her to read and
write well enough to understand most newspaper articles
and sign her name. Sunita’s mother is far from atypical;
most people in the village, especially the girls, are poorly
educated, proof of Nepal’s struggling education system.
The boys in Sunita’s village generally fare only slightly
better than the girls, financial necessity forcing most to
abandon their studies and work in the fields alongside
their fathers. A 2001 census found that just 48% of the
total population had achieved literacy: 62% of Nepalese
men and 34% of Nepalese women. 1
Sunita’s father, however, has always valued the importance
of education. On the first day of kindergarten for example,
when Sunita was in the throes of a temper tantrum and
refusing to leave the house, he persuaded her to go by
promising that at this particular school, teachers always
gave their students chocolate. With such a prize on the
horizon, the usually headstrong Sunita was easily pacified.
Dressed in her best, she struck out for the school, only to
lose her balance and slip and fall in the mud. Her chalkboard
and chalk, assigned to all school children in lieu
of scarce pencil and paper, were ruined, and so was her
dress. The day just went downhill from there. She arrived
late with shattered pieces of chalk in hand and mud caking
her front. The school lacked facilities like walls and
benches so the children sat on the floor to learn their
ABC’s, but Sunita’s father had already taught her the
alphabet and she could only focus on one thing: chocolate.
She began to demand the teachers for what she felt
was rightfully hers. One teacher finally lost patience with
her insistent questioning and slapped her. Indignant,
Sunita hid her chalkboard under her skirt and feigned a
trip to the toilets, (a nearby pond), before running the
entire distance home. Even at five, Sunita knew how to
stand her ground.
Luckily, she came back. In 2004, Sunita was the first girl in
her village to graduate from grade twelve. Not one to be
cowed by harsh odds, social norms, or even the continual
injustice of the chocolate missing from her life, Sunita’s
mind quickly moved to the next challenge—raising the
money to go to college. She longed to earn a degree in
business management, but the program, recently introduced
into the local university, was very expensive. Many
in her village protested she had already achieved enough,
but Sunita’s father was proud of his eldest and encouraged
her dreams. Despite his own lack of resources, he
assured her he would find the money for her education.
So he went to Sunita’s uncle Raju, a wealthy man in the
village who sponsored and supervised all the villagers’
loans, and implored him to give the family a loan. Raju
refused; Sunita’s education was useless, he said. Her only
value would lie in her ability to find a husband and rear
his children. Raju declared he would happily lend the
family money in the event of Sunita’s marriage, but never
for her degree.
When her father returned in the evening, deflated and
quiet, Sunita was too overcome with anticipation to see
the warning signs, and asked her father eagerly, “like a
small child,” for the news. At first she thought her father
18
1
CIA World Factbook, Nepal, accessed https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/np.html on August 7, 2008. Last updated July 24, 2008.

was joking when he explained Raju’s
decision and pleaded with him to be
serious: this was too grave a matter
for humor. When he finally convinced
her, she cried for the rest of the
night. “Why God does such kind of
behavior with us?” she questioned.
“He gives me good, kind, understand[ing],
and helpful father but He
never gives us money to fulfill our
basic needs. We only want to fulfill
our basic needs. Uncle’s small decision
made our family so sad.”
By the next morning, however, Sunita
was firm in her resolve. She would
find a job and pay her own way
through university. With the help of
a friend, she discovered an opening
at a human rights journalism forum.
Despite lacking experience and a
degree, she interviewed with the
head of the organization to inform
him frankly about her situation. He
spoke with the rest of the staff and
decided to make an exception for
Sunita, or at the very least satisfy her
with the knowledge he had done all
he could. The forum offered her a
trial of ten days in a nearby village,
to observe how she handled individuals
suffering from human rights violations
and how she communicated
their cases to the outside world.
Sunita admits to being very nervous
at the prospect of interviewing the
villagers: “I haven’t talked to anyone
before like that,” she confessed. It
took ten days to gather information
and transcribe the details of one case
into an article, but it was well worth
the effort. With pride, she alludes to
the organization’s surprise about her
final work: “They had never thought
that I would write that kind of article.”
The organization quickly offered
her the job. With a beaming smile,
she recalls her happiness: “Now I am
journalist!”
Well, not quite. First she had to tell
her parents. The position entailed
leaving home to travel around the
country to meet underprivileged villagers
from a variety of backgrounds,
bound by their experience as victims
of human rights violations. It was not
exactly a job that Nepali mothers
coveted for their daughters. Indeed,
Sunita’s mother initially refused to let
her go, citing danger and a pervasive
social stigma. She was appalled at
the idea of a young girl living on her
own away from home, and warned
Sunita that their community would
assume the worst of her. As Sunita
points out rather tactfully, “No girl[s]
leave the home.” It was only through
the continued efforts of her father
that Sunita was finally able to leave a
week later with her mother’s dubious
blessings.
Sunita thus spent the next three
years traveling the countryside and
documenting the trials of her fellow
Nepalese. Although she began working
for free as a volunteer, she was
soon promoted to a salary of 2,500
Nepalese rupees—approximately
thirty-seven U.S. dollars—a month.
At that time, “It was a very big
amount for me,” she says. By the
end of the three years, Sunita’s pay
had increased to 5,000 rupees every
month. But the more suffering she
saw, the more she traveled through
her country encountering people
who could only afford to eat once a
day, and who very often failed to find
the money for even that one meal,
the more she came to dismiss the
importance of money. She realized
how fortunate she was and began
to discover that life’s real value was
not rooted in simply becoming educated,
earning money, and living a
life of relative comfort—it was earned
through helping those in need.
Sunita asserts that she was “mentally
changed” by the experience, realizing
“I should not work for money
one day.” Instead, she hoped to
devote her time and energy to social
work in the future. She cherished the
human-rights job not only for the
tactical reporting skills she acquired
but for the perspective as well.
It is an unyielding fact that money is
a universal human necessity, however,
and Sunita, though spiritually
transformed, was not exempt—at
least not yet. Even after three years
of working, Sunita’s savings didn’t
even approach the university’s
expensive tuition. So when she heard
of a job opening for a human rights
defender at an NGO called Informal
Service Sector Center (INSEC), she
pounced at the opportunity. Her
competition was fierce: a pool of
three hundred candidates, the majority
of whom had already earned both
their bachelor’s and master’s
degrees.
But as she notes, her face ablaze
with intensity, “If I didn’t try, how
would I have any success?” Though
she had still completed only the
twelfth grade, Sunita talked her
way through the interview process,
impressing her future employers
so much with the wisdom she had
gained from her travels that they
offered her the job.
INSEC was responsible for two
Village Development Councils that
sought to represent the Mirgouliya
and Harricha regions. Sunita’s village
was located in the first council’s district.
She was assigned the difficult
task of meeting with political leaders
to convince them that the addition
of a constitutional assembly to the
village’s political process was not
only important, but it was imperative.
The democratization of an entire village’s
political structure was no small
19

“’I should not
work for money
one day.’
Instead, she
hoped to devote
her time and
energy to social
work in the
future.”
undertaking. Only after much discussion,
in which she used her extensive
communication skills from her stint in
journalism, did Sunita convince both
leaders and villagers alike. Before the
introduction of a representative body,
Sunita’s village sustained only a shell
of the democratic political process,
unchecked corruption circumventing
any vestige of real representation.
“People will vote for [a] political
party if they get something like a
sack full of rice, [or] five hundred
rupees,” Sunita explains. “But they
don’t know… five hundred rupees
is only for two or three days. If you
choose a bad leader it will effect
[your] whole lifetime.” Sunita’s work
in conjunction with INSEC granted
the people in her village real agency,
an invaluable gift for those whose
voices had been lost in the struggle
to stay above the poverty line.
Sunita next turned her attention to
the project that was, unsurprisingly,
the closest to her heart. It went back
to her high school days. After graduating
from grade eleven, already the
most educated person in her village,
Sunita and a few friends began to
grapple with ways they could make a
difference. After listening to a radio
program about HIV/AIDS supported
by the Saroj Koirala Memorial
Foundation, they were inspired to
start a club aimed at raising awareness
about the pandemic, but with
little funding the program was “not
as useful as we thought.” That was
when Rekha, a woman in Sunita’s village
who was the next best educated
after Sunita by virtue of having
passed class ten, approached Sunita
with an idea. Sunita recalls Rekha
telling her, “If you try [this], I think
everyone will follow you.”
Along with Rekha and eight other
women who were eager to get
involved, Sunita established an
organization called “Women Saving
Club.” Its initiative was to grant
loans to women in the village struggling
to begin their own farming
businesses, send their children to
school, or earn their bachelor’s
degrees. No men were allowed
to join. A budding micro-financier,
Sunita designed the program with
one crucial provision: women could
pay back their loans with limited
interest rates. Members were
granted six months to pay back their
loans in monthly increments at a
2% interest rate, while women in the
village who weren’t members could
still take out a loan but at a slightly
higher 3% interest rate. For such a
venture, Sunita found herself seeking
out capital, the essence of the
materiality she would later come
to question.
It began with donations of fifteen
rupees from each of the ten founders
every month, approximately $0.23
U.S. cents. The first month the
money was used to buy pens and
ledgers for keeping records. The
second, third, and fourth months the
money was set-aside in savings. At
the six-month mark, they increased
the monthly donations to twenty
rupees. The first few loans they
gave were for sums of five hundred
rupees, about $7.50 U.S. dollars.
These loans were faithfully paid back
in full; with the interest, in fact, they
were doubled. This capital was transformed
into bigger loans that in turn
yielded more interest. And just like
that, a microfinance organization
was born. Over the next few years,
“Women Saving Club” would dole
out loans for an astonishing 20,000
rupees, and eventually, every woman
in the village would join. Six years
later, with the organization thriving
in her village while she studies at the
Access Academy for the Asian
University for Women, 22-year-old
Sunita can now say with pride: “In
every home there is one member.”
And so it happened that one uncle
with gender perspectives mired
firmly in the past, set into motion the
steps that would launch one determined
girl far into her future. With
these projects, Sunita did for others
what her uncle refused to do for her.
While facing down a society that told
her she was worth no more than the
children she could bear, a view that
had wrestled its way into her very
family, Sunita would begin a quest to
record her country’s injustices, battle
political leaders, and empower the
women of her village. In doing so,
Sunita would prove to her community,
and perhaps a little to herself,
that men are not always the arbiters
of female destiny.
Small wonder one Bangladeshi cockroach
didn’t faze Miss Sunita Basnet.
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