Maya Universe AcademyNetherlands

Students take control

The mother of Goma, a 10th grade Mayan, came to the school one morning and asked me for some money to buy rice. She told me how several workers, including Goma’s father weren’t paid for the road construction.

I write today to share a very inspiring story that transpired this month.

You might be happy to know that the road to the main school is pitched. The mother of Goma, a 10th grade Mayan, came to the school one morning and asked me for some money to buy rice. She told me how several workers, including Goma’s father weren’t paid for the road construction. They had laboured for several months but the contractor had disappeared. I made a call to the chairman of the road construction committee, but he said he cannot do anything as the contractor employs other sub contractors who make their own deals.

“But how do you expect these families to buy rice?” I asked.
“Yeah, I understand” he replied as we ended the hopeless conversation.

I asked Goma the next day if she was just going to let some bastard cheat her family like that. She hopes to join the police force one day so I added, “I thought you were going to be a police inspector in a few years!”

She shared her problem with her friend Rejina, another Mayan who is the student leader of 200 schools in our area. She sometimes shares her inner guilt of not being able to make any real changes. We just grin widely. They gathered two other friends: Karina, who probably wrote another article for this newsletter and hopes to be a journalist, and Bobby, who will take the entrance exam of the best law school in Kathmandu in two years (I am sure she will be admitted with a scholarship though they only choose 75 applicants). They studied at Maya for eight years and are now preparing for their 10th-grade exam.

It wasn’t difficult to divide the work but it wasn’t easy to execute the plan. They identified the road contractors and made the first inquiries. Either their phones were busy or they ignored the adolescents as irrelevant background noise. They soon realised that it wasn’t going to work like that, so they decided to bunk school and go to the mayor’s office. There they asked questions related to the road construction and one bureaucrat asked them why he should be answering. While Bobby reminded him of their fundamental right to obtain public funding details, Karina said she was going to write an article about it. The bemused official got help from some peers and provided the spending details with the phone numbers of the contractors.

So if the project was for 6 crores (60 million rupees), why have only 4 crores been spent?” Rejina asked like a school principal who demands an answer from a naughty student who bunked a class.
“Well…but how would I know that? You must ask the main contractor,” returned the official submissively - afraid of the four investigators with their ponytails and school uniforms.
The girls left but reminded the official that they would be back soon. They called the main contractor, inquired about Goma’s father’s payment, and threatened him with a police case.

“His voice was like that of a supervillain in an Indian movie,” Rejina recalled when I asked her how the phone call went, “I was very afraid.” He told her that he didn’t have all the names and numbers of the top of his head as the project was huge. He did give a call the next day and apologized for the delayed payment and also sent the entire labor fee of Goma’s father and that of Maitay Malvu and Min Bahadur BK, two workers who were unpaid in a similar fashion.

I personally didn’t think they would succeed so soon. I thought it was exciting and a good chance to learn. It's difficult to know whom to complain to when things don’t go our way in Nepal, but I guess it's more difficult to ignore a group of determined youths. I suggested Goma to share this story with other construction workers in our area so that they don’t take unpaid fees as a natural occurrence.

“Tell the men to look for you when they need help in these cases,” I told the 4 girls.

We are now talking about Nanu Maya. Her daughter Manisha studies at Maya and she is part of our cleaning staff. Her husband left her for another woman and does not provide any support to her and their daughter. She has been fighting him in the court for two years. Her government lawyer is not able to win her the case and she can’t afford a private one. Her husband lives in Pokhara with his new family but polygamy is illegal in Nepal. She needs to prove that her husband has married another woman and even has a child with her. The girls think this is not only going to be easy but also fun because it’s in Pokhara and they can visit the lakeside.

“Are you still studying for your 10th-grade exam?” I teased them with a benign reminder.

I cannot thank our sponsors enough. This scholarship is the only way we are able to run and continue supporting our students. I often think about an uncle or a cousin, a friend, a past volunteer, or their parents who help Maya every month. Please let us know if you can find more sponsors so we can continue working with more children with the mission of bringing real changes in the country soon.