A coveted representation of approximately 1.9 million Nepalis worldwide hinted that NRNs have come to acquire a sort of elite status in Nepal.
NRNA is an international body formed during the First Non Resident Nepali Conference. Its executive body is the International Coordination Committee (ICC). Similarly, the 55 countries that are members of the NRNA have their respective National Coordination Committee (NCC) that handles the NRN activities in their respective countries and a special Kathmandu Secretariat in the home country. The appointment of women representatives was one of the important decisions made by the ICC in its inception in 2003.
“Coming from a closely knit culture such as ours, it gets lonely and scattered when abroad,” reminisces Ranjana Udas, the then only woman representative of the International Coordination Council (ICC) in 2003. In the same year, she started the ‘Nepali Nari Nikunj’ in Moscow that has become an aspiration for the NCCs in every country.
“We were able to bring out Nepali women together and work closely as women’s wing of the NCC in Russia by organizing various social, educational and cultural activities,” she says. They have been running a school for their children, celebrating important Nepali festivals, organizing literary and cultural activities in Moscow, and supporting different charity projects in Nepal.
“There are a host of problems faced by Nepali women when they go to foreign lands,” says Ranju Thapa Wagle, Deputy Coordinator of the Networking Women Task Force of the NRNA who is also network engineer with Nestle Australia.
Thapa-Wagle observes that there is a severe lack of confidence among newcomer women in a foreign land. Moreover, knowledge about the laws, and the ways to present themselves in a professional environment takes a toll on the psychology of women. Even women from the cities find themselves befuddled with the novelties. “It is in this confusion that the women’s wing seeks to offer guidelines to the women,” she adds.
“The ones used to a certain lifestyle and social recognition here in Nepal suddenly find themselves confined,” Thapa-Wagle points. Further on she pronounces that monetary limitations and motherhood in a foreign land can be tad too tiresome and causes a lot of friction even in family life. An acute need of comradeship poses itself as a basic need in this context. “If not for anything else, just to have a few people like yourself to share your feelings would help a lot: We want to create social capital even if we are abroad,” she says.
“Initially, we worked really hard to rope the women into the women’s forum, simple as it may sound to get such scattered diasporas, and specially getting women together took a while,” expresses Usha Sharma, the women representative of ICC (2007-2009), also working as consultant as an international policy expert in Berlin, Germany.
About the problems, NRN women are not a homogenous group and neither are their troubles “The ones faced by NRN women in Europe are very different from the ones in the Gulf countries,” articulates Sharma. She believes that one feat that NRNA has achieved as an organization was saving Dolma Sherpa’s life. Dolma was convicted of murder. With the NRN Save Life Dolma Relief Fund and the pressure generated by NRNA, instead of being sentenced to death in Kuwait, she is now sentenced to life imprisonment. “While the embassies in question are doing their bit, Dolma’s case suggests that we as a transnational organization could go a long way in protecting the rights of Nepali women abroad,” she adds.
Despite being working mothers and also as primary homemakers, these women observe one peculiar tight spot: that of imparting Nepali culture to their children who are but obviously tilted to the ways of life that they are brought up in.
“Making the children follow Nepali culture is not a big issue as logically convincing them that Nepali value system is the correct one to follow when people all around them are doing things differently,” says Udas. She shares that imparting such value judgements was the issue of discussion among a lot of Southeast Asian parents in the countries that she was in.
“Nari Nikunj Russia was an important feat in this regard. Firstly, it gave the Nepali community a platform to have family get together, and subsequently, the children got an opportunity to find friends from Nepali culture that diluted their sense of alienation in belonging to the Nepali value system,” she narrates quite cogently.
“If there is no Nepali language, there is no Nepali culture,” says Udas. Among other things the NRNA intends to develop is a universal curriculum of the Nepali language that is universally applicable and easily learnable for people the world over.
“If this agenda materializes, we could go a long way in establishing and propagating Nepali language universally,” Thapa-Wagle optimistically opines. Among other things, NRNA Women’s forum in its “future plans intends to make life for women simpler by providing childcare centers, computer training opportunities, professional counseling
services, and to making motherhood for women abroad a better opportunity.
Many articles of faith are in the air.
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