She may feature regularly on the cover of Swedish women’s magazine M-Magasin, but 68-year-old Amelia Amado refers to the Tharu women of Eastern Nepal as the most beautiful women she has seen in her life.
She credited that to the women’s resilience in the face of poverty, long hours in the fields and taking life as it comes.
“Up in the mountains, you really feel that women have a tough life, they have to carry heavy loads up and down mountains, they have to get up and work in the fields shortly after giving birth,” she said. “But yet they are not depressed, they are always smiling.”
Amado is publisher and editor of M-Magasin, which contributes a fifth of its newsstands sales to
UNICEF’s work in Nepal. She visits Nepal regularly to see how the US$150,000 that the magazine donates to UNICEF every year is being put to use.
Last month she was in Udaypur, speaking to women struggling to cope with uterine prolapse, domestic violence, and the outmigration of men from the villages.
The readership of M are Swedish women above 60 years, and Amado says that demographic means it has different interests than magazines meant for young women. For example, the magazine worked on a pink ribbon campaign to raise awareness about breast cancer in Sweden, and has also donated to projects in Ethiopia.
Thus, when Ingeborg Ekblom of UNICEF Sweden approached Amado about contributing to UNICEF Nepal, the editor didn’t need much convincing. However, when she decided to donate part of her magazine’s profits to improve lives of children and women in Nepal, she never thought that it would be a life-changing experience for her as well.
“In the beginning I cried. I felt that I had to save every girl and be Mother Teresa,” she said, “but
you soon become practical and try to achieve as much as you can to help.”
After every visit, Amado writes seven or more feature articles about child labour, female health
volunteers, and para-legal committees that help rural Nepali women. Amado has to bargain with her layout editor to get all the articles published.
Amado tried hard to persuade the magazine to give her the space so that by writing about issues in Nepal there will be a multiplier effect on donations that UNICEF receives. Despite seeing how women struggle in a patriarchal society, Amado says she is also struck by how much solidarity there is among Nepali women.
“Women are speaking up now, they are telling each other that it’s not okay to be beaten by your husband and it is not okay to be forced into an early marriage,” she said. “It is as if there is an army of women supporting each other.”
This is why Amado says her stories on Nepal may highlight problems, but they also end on a hopeful note: “It is not a sob story all the time, we make it hopeful, and try to motivate people back in Sweden to want to help.”
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