Indira Ranamagar

Why has Child Rights Hero Nominee • Pages 68–85 Indira been nominated? Indira Ranamagar Indira Ranamagar has been nominated for the 2014 World's Children's Prize for her 20-year struggle for prisoners' children in Nepal. Indira grew up in extreme poverty and had to fight to be able to go to school. Even as a young girl she knew that she wanted to help other people who had hard lives. Indira has built up an organisation called Prisoners Assistance Nepal (PA), which has rescued over a thousand children from cramped, dirty prisons. The children end up there because their parents have been sentenced to time in prison and nobody else is able to take care of them. When Indira rescues child Jungle girl’s stubborn ren, they are taken to one of PA's three children's homes. There they get an education school struggle and a safe childhood. They also learn agricultural skills Indira’s feet slip in the mud on the narrow path the jungle to graze. Searching and how to take care of ani between the rice fields. She is six years old. Naked for edible mushrooms and mals. PA runs a children's roots to take home. She even home called Jankuri outside and barefoot, she gathers firewood in a big basket found two crabs in the river, Kathmandu. Children from on her back. and lit a fire and cooked them. the surrounding villages are Two older girls walk towards Indira on the path. Indira knows it's important allowed to attend the to work hard. Not to be lazy. school too. They are wearing blue school uniforms and their She likes working and learning Indira lobbies politicians hair is in long, shiny plaits. When they get to new things. People in the vil AN BJERKE and authorities to make pri lage rarely call her Indira. She H Indira on the narrow path they push her and she sons more humane. Many has two other names instead. prisoners come from very falls over. The girls laugh loudly and walk on. One is Kanchi, or little one, HOTO: JO P poor families. Indira and since she is the youngest child PA teach them to read and ndira gathers the firewood that is hurting her and in the Magar family. The other write, so that they can up again. She is in pain. making her cry. name is Niguri, which is the manage better, and take I But it isn't the cuts on her All day, she has been run name of a jungle fruit that is better care of their children feet that hurt – the ones she ning around the village as covered in curly hair. Indira when they are released gets from walking barefoot usual, helping everyone. has a shock of wild, wavy hair from prison. on soil and stones. It’s some Fetching water and wood. on her head. She's the only TEXT: EVA-PIA WORLAND thing else, something inside, Taking cows and goats into person in the village with 68 Hi mum! Roshina visits her By the time she is ten years mum and little brother old, Indira can read and wri in prison. She lives at a te, and she knows that she can children's home run by learn almost anything. Indira and Prisoners Assistance. “Of course I can!” Nobody can tell Indira that there are some things she just can’t do because she’s a girl. Like ploughing the fields, for example. “Of course I can!” says Indira, and pulls the plough just as well as the strong boys. She draws strength from her pure stubbornness and often turns out to be even stronger than the older boys. She beats them at football. A teacher has heard about Indira, and persuades her parents to allow her to start wavy hair, so she is a bit diffe open straight through. The Instead, Indira hangs over school. Her brother saves up rent. Here, hair is meant to be floor is covered with old rice her brother’s shoulder while for her school fees by selling straight and smooth and easy sacks. he’s doing his homework. bananas. The teacher thinks to tie back in shiny plaits. For dinner they eat rice. And she begs and begs and she should start in Year 4. Indira doesn't like being called Almost always rice, but now begs. He gets annoyed, but Indira doesn’t agree. Year 5 Niguri, but she tries not to let and again Indira’s mother she keeps ask ing. Finally, he suits her much better, so it is it get to her. brings a few soya beans from gives in and starts to teach decided. But there is no money the field. She hides them in her letters and numbers. for a school uniform or school Sleeping with the cows her clothes. Indira learns fast. She re bag. Indira just wears her She doesn’t see her mother and Indira’s two older brothers peats everything, and writes tunic. father during the day. They go to school. She wants to go letters in the sand. The brothers That remains her school work for other people in the too. She wants to learn to read also teach some of the adults uniform throughout her fields, to support the family. and write, and wear a lovely in the village at home, and years at school. They can’t When they come home in the school uniform. At the Indira listens intently while even afford pens or crayons. evening, they often find Indira moment all she wears is a tunic chopping vegetables or cook She has to strain to remember among the cows, where she made from prickly sackcloth. ing rice. He reads out stories everything that the teacher likes to sleep. Indira nags and nags and of famous men and women in shows them on the chalkboard, “Kanchi,” sighs her mother, prays to God. But there isn’t history, who have done good and as soon as they get a break “now let’s go home and wash enough money. And she is a things for others. Indira she sits down on the ground off the cow poo again.” girl. There’s no point in pay absorbs everything, and for and writes everything in the The family have a simple ing for schooling for girls, since gets nothing. Now she knows sand from memory. That’s house on stilts. It only has all they do is get married and that she wants to be a person why she never has time to walls on two sides, so it’s wide look after children anyway. who helps others. play with the other children. At lunchtime she has to run home and move the animals to a different pasture. She has The first photographs of Indira to do that every morning, lunchtime, and evening. Indira gets on well at school. She is particularly gifted at maths. Within a year, Indira is the best in the class and she gets a scholarship. And she has much higher grades than tho se two girls who pushed her over. She forgave them a long time ago. But she will never excuse injustice. 69 Indira wasn’t allowed in the kitchen ndira didn’t have many friends at school. She was poorer I than most, and belonged to a lower caste than the other children. The caste system was banned in Nepal a long time ago, but it still exists nonetheless. When Indira comes to prison with the children to visit, the mums have made food People are divided into different for the children and they eat together. groups, called castes. People who belong to the lowest castes are often treated badly. “One time I went to a girl’s house,” says Indira. “Then her mother came and told me I Indira wants to help the poor must not go into the kitchen. Since I belonged to a lower caste she thought I was ‘unclean’, Wherever Indira Ranamagar goes, people recognise her. dirty, and I wasn’t to touch any “Namaste Aama,” they say, which means ‘good day, mother’. Street thing to do with food or the kitchen. It felt so horribly unjust. children, politicians, and rich businessmen. They know that she rescues It made me both sad and angry.” poor children from prisons. In a caste system, there are When she approaches in her shining white sari, it’s hard to believe that loads of rules that affect people’s lives. What jobs they Indira once ran around naked in the jungle. That she once couldn’t read are allowed to do, for example, or write. But Indira herself will never forget the poverty of her child- or who they can marry. As hood. That’s what drives her to help others. soon as you are born you belong to a caste, a group, which has either high or low hen Indira was teacher. At one school, Indira Then Parijat asked Indira value. If you are born into a seventeen, she met Parijat, a wellknown to start working with her. low caste, you belong to it for Wleft her village author who wrote a lot about “I was scared the first time your whole life, and you can to continue her education human rights. Parijat thought I went into a prison,” says never move to a ‘better’ caste. in the capital city, Kath it was wrong that people were Indira. “I thought the priso There are people who are man du. She worked hard put in prison for protesting ners were dangerous, but I born with no caste at all.

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