22 Oct Ms. Urmila BK
Ms. Urmila BK studies are an eleventh grader at Subha Pravat High School. She lives in a nuclear family with five siblings and parents. Both of her parents work as daily wage laborers at construction site. Urmila has been receiving scholarship support from Milijuli Samaj Nepal from the last three years. According to Urmila, since she has many siblings and are all acquiring formal education, her parents face financial difficulties in meeting their educational expenses. Urmila states, ‘my family is very poor. Sometime, there is no food in our house. I pity myself in that time. This year, Milijuli Samaj Nepal granted me NRs 10,000 and I could pay for my admission fee, examination fee, school uniform, school bag and stationeries. Giving birth to too many children and raising them has placed a large financial burden on my parents. In such condition, the help of MSN has been playing a vital role in my life. My mother who is illiterate is very positive towards my study. We all reside in two rented rooms. My father has been advising me to study till 12th grade as he says he cannot afford higher education of all children.In a bid to find additional support, I have also submitted request letter to my school but haven’t got any responses. I have been doing good in my studies from the primary level. My goal is to become an engineer and serve in the government office. There are no females having obtained higher degrees in our village, but I want to achieve that. Due to weak financial condition of my family, I went through many obstacles in class eight. My intention after completing higher studies is to help those people who have been enduring similar problems like mine.’
Urmila has a good rapport with an organization named Voice of Children (VOC) through which she came into contact of Milijuli Samaj Nepal. At one event, she got an opportunity to participate in a workshop against sexual abuse organized by VOC. After the training, she gained lot of information about sexual abuse. She nowadays ignores text messages in her mobile sent by strangers to avoid any miss happenings.