Difficult Decisions

If all goes well, 25 girls will be moved from Lawajuni to Papa's House 3 in Kathmandu this weekend. Deciding which 25 girls to bring here has been a painful and terrible decision for Michael. He would like to move all of them here, but NOH doesn't have enough money to do so. The children in Kathmandu get a good private school eduation and have access to more resources, while the girls in Lawajuni go to a public school that will not afford them the same opportunities. Michael loves all of his Nepalese children just as much as he loves his biological children -- even those who have only recently joined NOH. So I think that deciding which children come to Kathmandu and which stay in Narti is analogous to an educated, middle class parent having to chose which of his two children will go to a private school, attend college, and end up in a white collar job and which child will attend a not so good public high school and probably end up working at a dead end minimum wage job. Michael is working on ideas to give the girls at Lawajuni vocational training so that they will be able to support themselves, but it is still a horrible thing for him to have to make a decision that will profoundly affect each child's future.


Furthermore, I have just learned that not all of the children at Papa's House are actually orphans. When Michael initially took over the decrepit orphanage, some mothers or other family members came out of the woodwork. It seems that kids were dropped off at the orphanage because the families were poor and couldn't or didn't want to keep them. In addition, some "brokers" go to remote villages and con parents into paying them to take their children to a boarding school in Kathmandu. The brokers actually pocket the money and give the kids to the government with papers saying that the children are orphans. The government then sends the kids to places like NOH. Michael believes that some of the children at Papa's House who came through the government actually have families that could keep them. Given what is happening in the economy, he fears that donations will decrease in the foreseeable future and, therefore, NOH cannot afford to keep supporting children who are not orphans or rescued kamlari girls (when he hears of more abused girls that need to be rescued, Michael cannot bear to say no and nobody else seems to be taking them in). So he has been trying to find someone who can track down families and interview them to see whether they are capable of supporting their children. If so, he will return their kids, even though the families would undoubtedly prefer that they stay at NOH (though I'm sure that they will be happy to know where their kids are).


Tracking down the families is herculean task and, up until now, Michael has not been able to find someone who could do it. A few weeks ago, however, he hired, Swastika, a young, vivacious, well-connected woman who is already making progress as she attacks all the red tape. Swastika has an MSW (or the equivalent) and wants to get a Masters in psychology in the U.S. in a year or two. Ultimately, she wants to work with children. She is clearly from a very well-to-do family in Kathmandu. I don't know what her parents do, but she told me that one of her uncles is the president of the national human rights commission and Michael said that she has another uncle who runs an organization that helps children in some way. I hope that I will have the opportunity to get know her better while I am here.


Just like the kamlari girls, Michael loves all of the kids at Papa's Houses 1 & 2 like his own, whether they are orphans or not. Moreover, he has known and loved some of these kids for several years now and they think of Papa's House as their home and love going to their school. I can't begin to imagine how difficult it will be for him to return these kids to their families, knowing that they will not have the future that they would have if they stayed here. It is a horrific position for him to be in and it seems terribly unfair for a man who is doing such an amazing thing with his life to have to face this situation.