Nepali Times

It is morning playtime in a Kathmandu neighbourhood school and the children are playing in a yard. But nine-year-old Urmila says she doesn’t feel like playing today. Last night she saw her mother in a dream and wants to write her a letter.

Urmila’s mother lives 600km away in Achham district and they see each other just once a year. Her father worked in Delhi and returned home HIV positive and passed on the virus to Urmila’s mother. Urmila was born positive.

Urmila’s parents never told anyone about their affliction and enrolled her in Grade 1 in a government school in Achham. But when her teachers found out, they expelled Urmila.

“At the time I was taking ARV drugs and when my friends asked me, I told them I was taking medicine for a headache,” Urmila recalls, “I knew that if anybody found out I would be expelled.” Forced to lie to her friends, one day the principal called Urmila and told her not to come back because she was HIV positive.

There are tens of thousands of HIV positive children and AIDS orphans in Nepal and often they are not allowed to attend school because of stigmatisation and ignorance about the nature of the virus. Now, there are schools like Saphalta HIV Shiksya Sadan in Kathmandu that have been set up especially for positive children.

The school, founded by 28-year-old Rajkumar Pun, is home to 10 children aged between three to ten years old, and is the first of its kind in Nepal. Pun sold his house for Rs 5 million to start the school, but still needs Rs18,000 a month for running expenses which he raises from charities.

“All the children here were turned back from other schools,” he explains, “they claim parents would take out their children if they enroll HIV-positive students and government schools refused them.”

Even renting the house in Kathmandu was difficult, landlords refused to let out rooms when they found out the children were infected.

When Rajkumar Pun and Uma Gurung read about Urmila’s story in a newspaper, they persuaded her to come and live at their shelter and school.

Dattaram Rai, who left his old job in an office to become a volunteer teacher at the school, says: “When I heard about this school I immediately joined up. It is really fulfilling to teach children who were ostracised by society. Money is not everything in life, this work gives me more satisfaction than all the money I could earn.”

Manju is 10 and also goes to school at Saphalta, she was brought here by an aunt after her mother died of AIDS.

“In my village, neighbours would tell their children not to play with me,” she recalls, “it really hurt my feelings and I would cry often.”

Manju and Urmila love to dance and after school they lead the younger students in a dance. Urmila says she wants to be a famous dancer one day.

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