Sister, sister small world

This is a plug, but a selfless plug.

Roughly 6 years ago I got a sister.

She’s close to 19 yrs old.

She is not an “oops baby” little sibling that I have kept hidden from you friends for years. Nor am I actually the adopted sister and she’s the biological one that my brother always wondered about…

Rakshya Dhungel is my adopted little sister thanks to The Little Sisters Fund. She lives in Kathmandu, Nepal and I have sponsored her education since I graduated from high school. My good friend Trevor Patzor helped found the LSF about the time he was coaching me on the crew team at my high school. Long story short, I have corresponded with Rakshya and visited her a few years ago thanks to my own scholarship at UVA.

Having had the best education available to me thanks to a generous father, I have felt lucky to be able to pass on that honor to a girl in such need across the world. If it weren’t for her education, Rakshya and girls like her would be prostituted at a young age and have no hope for a future with any self respect. So for only a few hundred dollars a year, I give Rakshya a future. Actually, I give her a present. It is today, or rather years ago at this point, that she would be sold as a commodity into one of the largest sex trades in south Asia.

But instead Rakshya has received an education at one of the top schools in Kathmandu, Nobel Academy, just down the road from her home. She has had preventative health care, access to computers and a special LSF library, the community of other LSF sisters, and the guidance of wonderful Ramesh, Usha, and Trevor and other leaders who guide the girls through school and beyond.

This is all background to introduce you to an incredible coincidence. (I should pause and admit that I do not believe that coincidences are just coincidences. I strongly believe that they are red flags waving us down, a knock on the head to open our eyes to something important.) The story I just told is just about what I told my aunt which prompted her to adopt her own little sister. Meanwhile, my aunt’s son (my cousin Christopher Friendly) has close friends from his time teaching in Ecuador who make documentaries among other beautiful creations (Scott and Amy of www.newfictionmedia.com). I will quote from Scott’s email from Kathmandu:

Been looking at a fine family album of yours just this morning, in the form of letters and photos your good mother sent to Shanta, the Nepali untouchable girl whose education she sponsors through the Little Sisters Fund. Amy and I are in Kathmandu, making a documentary about the Little Sisters Fund and girls education in general.

Looked on the wall of this little girl’s tiny room (the one she shares with her brother, sister in law, and niece), and saw your picture. And I says to myself, why, that there’s Pie Friendly’s boy. We all had us one hell of a small world moment right then and there, I’ll tell you what.

We think we’re going to be spending a lot of time with Shanta–probably be filming her for at least a couple long days in the next week or two, and taking an interview, and hanging out with her brother, etc. Check out our blog (linked below) to see what we been up to.

My aunt (in white) and uncle (in dark suit) are dancing in the middle of this photo.

Please do check out their blog: http://www.nonfictionmedia.com/blog

(By the way, Rakshya is the girl in black and white stripes at the top left of the banner on the front page of the NonFiction Media blog!) There is a lot in there about creating the documentary from the technical side but recently it is teaming with adventure as a transportation strike has thrown them for a loop. I feel for Scott and Amy as I too have experienced such a strike as I landed in the rain in Kathmandu as a sole 20yr old girl without the ‘pre-arranged’ ride I thought I would have…story for another day.

So if you are not inspired by my words, read the NonFiction Media blog and read about LSF at http://littlesistersfund.org/ .

Then close your eyes and truly imagine what you would be doing today if it were not for your education which was undoubtedly paid for by someone else at some point. You may not have loved your alma maters but you can’t deny that they led you somewhere that was nowhere close to a brothel in Kathmandu. You may have earned your way through higher ed one way or another but none of us paid our way through elementary, junior, or high school. On top of that, we all had lights to read by, food on the table, and doctors to heal us regardless of the education. Oh, and we have people who believe in us. I believe in Rakshya and all her sisters. I have proven that to her and the rest of her society each year with a small portion of my income.