Guest Blog: a fascinating and humbling day

Stuart with a fellow farmer

In May, Brenda and I joined our daughter, Helen, to visit three villages around Kathmandu to meet some of the people CWISH had been working with.  CWISH is a Nepali charity that is working with girls and families involved with child domestic labour. The villages were perched on mountainous slopes, intensively terraced, in the Kavre district just outside Kathmandu.  

We were accompanied by Sweta a young woman who works for CWISH and we met several groups of people. Firstly a group of girls and some of their dads. The girls had all been in child domestic work and CWISH had managed their return home and reintegration into their families. The fathers said how glad they were to have their girls back, and how they now realised that sending them off in the first place, had been wrong, but they just did not realise what they were letting their daughters into.  Then we met a farmer of a small holding, whose income was so low that CWISH had recognised the high risk that the family would be sending some of their girls off to work as child domestics, but that through a little investment by CWISH into the farm, buying bamboo poles to provide a sheltering structure over some of his terraces, the farmer could increase his crops and therefore his income, and could keep his children at home. 

It is amazing how just a little investment can make such a difference to a family, and in particular to a young girl’s life. Then we met a sort of village council, sitting under a large tree discussing the services CWISH were offering and hearing their pleas for even more help.  We felt a real sense of rural community sitting beneath that tree, and a deep hope that their appeal for more help can be met, they start with so little. A fascinating and a humbling day for us Europeans.  

Stuart and Brenda Veitch

A meeting with village elders in Kavre

The X Factor of partnership

One of the benefits of running your own organisation is that you don't have to take part in job interviews anymore.  I've done quite a few job interviews in my time and I hate them - a couple of years ago my summer holiday was ruined by a phone interview that I had to do on the second from last day!  Last week I took part in a phone interview to secure funds for a project Children Unite has applied for.  I guess this is the closest thing to a job interview I have these days.  When I explained what I was doing to my daughters they said it sounds like the final of X Factor (a TV talent show that grips the nation every winter when we've got nothing better to do)!!

But this ‘job’ interview was so much more enjoyable than any other I have been involved in.  It was partly because I didn't do it on my own.  Children Unite has developed a proposal for a research project in collaboration with one of our partner organisations in Nepal (CWISH), so two of the staff from CWISH, Writu and Milan, were at the interview too.  I was, of course, still nervous about the interview but it was a well organised 'discussion' - the funding agency sent out questions a week beforehand.  And Milan, Writu and myself were relatively well prepared (having emailed each other about our answers).  I definitely felt part of a team as we answered the questions.  

The other factor in my 'enjoyment' of the interview was that I think our research project is great!  I have a lot of confidence in it and believe it is well thought-out and achievable...I know this sounds a bit like I'm blowing my own trumpet but as I read through our proposal in preparation for the interview I felt confidence and excitement about the project rather than trepidation and nerves.  I think this is because Jonathan and I visited Nepal in March, met with Milan and Writu and discussed at length how Children Unite and CWISH would like to work together - and this project is the result!  The development of this project is the perfect example of how we would like to build partnerships through Children Unite.

So, here I am, waiting for news on how we did....does our proposal have the 'X' factor!  But whether we are victorious or not I am confident that the experience of partnership and collaboration I have had throughout the process has been beneficial and rewarding

But fingers crossed anyway!