A half a world away from Minnesota, young girls in Nepal struggle to stay in school. But now, boxes of help are coming from the Twin Cities.
The name Asha in Nepal means hope – in this case, the hope of empowering young girls.
One of the founders of Headwaters Relief says what they’re hoping to do is build cultural identity.
“And we know this from many types of studies over the years, that if you build a child’s self-esteem, then you can create for them the desire to seek out other opportunities,” said Rebecca Thomley.
Headwaters Relief is sending 2,000 of the Asha dolls to Nepal. Nearly all of them going to girls in orphanages. Roshan is a former hospital medical director in Nepal, who has helped Headwaters organize earthquake relief missions to the country.
“We started right after the earthquake in 2015,” said Roshan.
They’ve been back several times including the outreach to help children. Part of the effort includes books teaching them about the dangers of human trafficking.
“This is a story of a young girl who falls into prey of hands but comes back and makes herself be able to go to school and with her brothers and sisters again,” she explained. “This is kind of a message that we are trying to help provide to the kids all around the world.”