Reproduced below, with permission from Monika Ranjitkar, is the appeal she sent out in the initial stages of planning the event.
We are organising a Charity Fundraiser Musical Event on Saturday, the 22nd of March in Aid of COMMITTED- Nepal.
Everyday approximately 3 Nepalese migrant workers go back home in coffins. Most of them, the main breadwinners of their families, leave behind younger siblings or children. With the demise of their sole provider, the hopes and dreams of these children to have a better future, to escape the hardships of poverty and to serve the nation as future stars, are all shattered.
Over the past five years, 915 Nepali workers died in Malaysia, 736 in Saudi, 614 in Qatar, 215 the United Arab Emirates, 72 in Kuwait, 47 in Bahrain and 31 in Korea. There have been 3,500 deaths in Saudi and 2,300 in Malaysia since 2000. 185 Nepali workers died (in Qatar alone) in 2013 and it’s just an official record. There are so many of these migrant workers from Nepal whose deaths aren’t even accounted for.
We can’t bring them back or change what has already happened in the past but we can definitely help change or influence what is to happen in future.
Let’s help educate the children of these migrant workers and not compel them to follow the lead of their parents who had no choice but to get exploited, enslaved and die!!!
COMMITED-Nepal is a non-profit organisation, founded by Jayjeev Hada in 2004, is registered both in Nepal and the US, trying to provide holistic and sustainable development programs and programs to help educate the children from marginalized and underprivileged background. Apart from this, COMMITTED-Nepal is also committed to raising awareness about migrant workers issues and has already started taking initiatives in helping provide education to the children of deceased migrant workers.
Dorje Gurung, the Education Program Director of COMMITTED-Nepal himself is a live testimony of what a child can become or achieve, provided enough support or access to quality education. I have been truly inspired by Dorje’s story on how he was able to beat all the odds of not even making it to primary school, to not just making it to a private high school, but getting educated in some of world’s finest tertiary institutions and becoming who he is now. Apart from being a gifted and talented student and teacher, he is a man trying to give back to the community he hailed from and making a difference in the lives of many children who would otherwise not stand a chance to be educated.
I would like to plead to all of you, to be generous and thoughtful in helping out Dorje/COMMITTED in continuing their noble work by coming and supporting this event. All the proceeds from this event will go to COMMITTED’s new initiative in keeping alive the dreams of these silent and innocent victims, the children of migrant workers who have died abroad.
