my life journey

seema.shah

poverty

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• mystoryStandingUp

I come from a community that belongs to the Terai part of Nepal where still girls are given less priority than boys. As I started considering myself as a part of the society, the question that really hit my mind those days was: Does the birth of daughter add burden on parents?” I could often hear my relatives discouraging me as a woman of color. I could never see any boy being ashamed of his skin tone. Then why was I made ashamed of my dark skin? The only reason behind it is that I am a girl. I heard my relatives bringing up the issue: “How could a poor and dark girl get a good proposal of marriage?” As the dowry system is major problem of my community, I could see my parents being discouraged about my study. Moreover, my father’s parents completely opposed educating a girl. But with the support of my family, I have been able to continue my studies till now with the support of my family and my own hard labor.

My father was the only breadwinner of my family. It was hard for him to run the family and foot the bills of college with his limited amount of salary. So, he was often drunk which created domestic violence and mental torture in my family. Most of the time, watching my parents quarreling and then the painful cry of my mother and her mental tension brought a sort of inner feeling that it is necessary to uproot poverty in order to maintain peace and healthy environment at home and in the society.

All these factors have directly and indirectly created a platform for my awareness in a global context. Getting an opportunity to study at Asian University For Women has proved to be my first step on the path of social change as people of my community really started considering the capability of girls: I was the first girl from my village to step out of the country in search of higher education, despite being a girl from a poor family background. This was the first achievement of my life towards my thought of changing the wrong mentality of people, ignoring the value and capability of girls. I look forward to observing especially girls of Terai and the lower caste being able to recognize themselves as important members of society, nation and the world.