in the year when we endeavour to get our refuge children back to stay with relatives, including parents, for some semblance of family life. Today my colleague Gunraj Gurung visited the home in Butwal of one of the boys at the Bhairahawa "White House" refuge to check that all was in order for this temporary reunification. The house is pictured right.Inside the house Gunraj found the boy's mother lying in some kind of a stupor. A neighbour told him that her husband had died eight months ago. No one had advised the organisation. So her son, who was of course in ignorance of this, would have had the most traumatic of returns instead of a happy festival. Gunraj also found at the house the boy's sister dressed in filthy clothes. He has asked if we can admit her to our refuge and I have agreed.
So often organisations like ours can be criticised for providing "institutional care" for children who would surely be better off with their families. Those dewy-eyed critics can't have had much exposure to the downright misery that goes with rural poverty in Nepal.
