27 Sep 2010

NEPAL / EQUITY

UNICEF programmes are gaining ground on equity in Nepal. Work is under way to narrow the gaps in gender, geography, rich and poor, the outcast and the uncounted in an effort to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. UNICEF

Posted at: September 27, 2010 3:54 pm

Duration: 03:17

Available in: SD

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Full script

STORY: NEPAL / EQUITY
TRT: 3:17
SOURCE: UNICEF
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NEPALI / NATS
 
DATELINE: 16 SEPTEMBER 2010, KAVRE DISTRICT, NEPAL
 
SHOTLIST:
 
1. Tilt down, pasture
2. Wide shot, child running down a hill
3. Med shot, of children walking up a track
4. Med shot, UN vehicle crossing a river
5. Med shot, women standing behind a mustard field
6. Med shot, woman picking leaves off the ground
7. Close up, woman picking leaves off the ground
8. Med shot, woman working in field
9. Wide shot, boy on a horse and a girl running on a bridge
10. Med shot, woman walking on the bridge with baby on shoulders
11. Wide shot, women sitting by the fire
12. Close up, woman with a child by fire
13. Med shot, woman walking on a track
14. Med shot, woman dropping the load from her head to the ground
15. SOUNDBITE (Nepali) Buddhamaya Mizar, mother:
"Some villagers ask us to stay away from them while some treat us equally. If we go to their houses to have meals, we have to wash our dishes ourselves then they take the utensils only after sprinkling purified water on things we've touched. Not all treat us as untouchables, but some would not even allow our shadow to fall on them.  We need to spread cow dung on the floor where we sit so as to cleanse it."
16. Wide shot, woman and her child walking in the village
17. Close up, children
18. Med shot, young mother with her child
19. Close up, young woman standing with her child
20. Wide shot, outhouse
21. Med shot, cattle feeding
22. SOUNDBITE (English)  Rupa Joshi, Communications Specialist, UNICEF Nepal:
"The chhaupadi goth is where the women go and spend four days when they have their periods, many other villages here don't practice that culture similarly this whole custom of the far west where men go to India to work. The poverty, thecaste system, it's just so hard etching out a living in this area."
23. Med shot, community health worker with mother and baby
24. Close up, child on mother's lap
25. Wide shot, teacher writing on a black board
26. Wide shot, children reciting
27. Zoom out, hill with houses
28. Wide shot, doctor surrounded by patients
29. Med shot, health sign
30. Med shot, boy walking toward scale
31. Med shot, child being measured
32. Med shot, child being weighed
33. Wide shot, bicycles in town
34. Med shot, vehicles in dusty street
35. Med shot, people  wearing masks
36. Med shot, boy sitting outside his house
37. Wide shot, buffalo tied in a field
38. Wide shot, children playing
39. Wide shot, child carrying heavy weight
40. Wide shot, woman carrying a heavy load on her head

STORYLINE:
 
From a distance, perched on a Himalayan hilltop, Shiradi village looks like many other villages in the far west of Nepal, but it's not.

Like other villages, it's poor, rugged and remote. There are no real roads, no electricity and no services. But this is also a village where only the 'lower caste' live and, more unusually, a village where no men reside.

Every capable man and boy has gone to work in the capital of neighbouring India, Delhi, while the women toil alone on the tough terrain for most of the year. Only once or twice a year, the men come back for short breaks.

It's not just the geography in this out-of-reach spot or their gender that holds back the women and girls of Shiradi. It's also traditions and caste.

SOUNDBITE (Nepali) Buddhamaya Mizar, mother:
"Some villagers ask us to stay away from them while some treat us equally. If we go to their houses to have meals, we have to wash our dishes ourselves then they take the utensils only after sprinkling purified water on things we've touched. Not all treat us as untouchables, but some would not even allow our shadow to fall on them.  We need to spread cow dung on the floor where we sit so as to cleanse it."

In Shiradi, time seems to have frozen. Extreme poverty, combined with established traditions, has delayed development by decades. Girls marry young and are unprepared for motherhood. When they menstruate, they are sometimes forced to live in an outhouse for fear they'll bring 'bad luck' to family and livestock.

SOUNDBITE (English) Rupa Joshi, UNICEF Communications Specialist, Nepal:
"The chhaupadi goth where the women go and spend four days when they have their periods, many other villages here don't practice that culture, similarly this whole custom of the far west where men go to India to work. The poverty, caste system, it's just so hard etching out a living in this area."

Despite robust economic growth, South Asia is a region of widening gaps between rich and poor. In Nepal, this disparity has been brought into even sharper relief by a rise in the number of millionaires, while the majority of the population still lives on under $1.25 a day. In addition, unique caste divides cut deep, as ethnic and tribal groups are marginalized.

It is gaps like these that UNICEF and other aid agencies are trying to narrow in the countdown to the Millennium Development Goals' 2015 target date. For some regions, it's about reaching the 'bottom quintile' – the lowest 20 per cent on the economic scale, the poorest of the poor.

Many women and children in this region risk being left behind, destined to miss out on the benefits of investment in human development simply because they were born poor, female, of the wrong caste, or simply in the wrong place.

With the bulk of the world's poor living in South Asia, what happens in this region will make a marked difference in the world reaching the MDGs with equity in the next five years.