Earlier this month I described in a post how most of our refuge children go back to their villages to stay with family members for the main Hindu festival of Dashain. On the face of it our sending them back makes good sense as it's fulfilling the wishes of children to enjoy some semblance of family life and it keeps them in contact with families. Family bonds are very important in Nepal. However, this practice carries huge risks and once again we've had our annual raft of disasters. I met with the children's carer, Shailaja, yesterday to discuss the fall out from Dashain and the non return of a few children and teenagers.
It seems from our discussion that a large part of the problem comes from children leaving the structured routine of our refuge in Kathmandu to the unstructured (indeed chaotic) lifestyle back in their villages. Unsupervised by parents, the children are free to roam around the place, make acquaintances (some of which can be very unhealthy) and develop alternative naive visions for their short term futures. And so they come to the decision to drop out of education or training and in the case of at least four of those who are not coming back to us, to get married. Needless to say, the education and training that we offer provide a real future, but the children/teenagers don't necessarily see it that way and their families are too ignorant to counsel them otherwise.
Shailaja was clearly saddened during our discussion as she is very emotionally involved with the children. She has known some of them for years and it was she more than anyone who turned a few of them around after they emerged as basket cases from the abuse of the Indian circus. She's also upset in the knowledge that the children haven't realised their full potentials and won't get another chance or as good a chance again. And she knows that, after making a personal visit to the see the children at their homes this week that they won't be persuaded to come back to us. We have to therefore console ourselves in the knowledge that we have provided a stable emotional bridge between the circus and return to the community. Without that bridge the returnees' reintegration would have been difficult, if not impossible.
The vacant places at the refuge will be filled again soon; there are plenty of other young children - vulnerable siblings of returnees - who could use those vacancies and be offered a chance in life. However we decided yesterday that in future we will obtain a commitment from children and their parents that in the final four years before taking the all important School Leaver's Certificate examination (at age 16) refuge children will not return to their villages for Dashain or any other festival. Parents can come to see the children if they so wish. We have to ensure that expensive charity refuge/education places are used to their full potential and that children don't find themselves in the village environment which is so conducive to taking wrong decisions at a critical time for their future.
It's very hard to strike the right balance in this kind of work but if you keep at the forefront of your mind what is in the best interests of the individual child then you won't go far wrong.
