“When my father remarried after my mother died, my stepmother took all my books and pencils from me and said, ‘Look who wants to go to school and study. There is no need, go work in the fields, go look after the animals, go wash the pots.’ So that was the end of it. I would see my friends walk past me in uniforms and there I was washing pots. Once I ran away to school as I heard that there was a dance program. When I returned home my stepmother was furious and she set the dogs after me. Such was life. After I got married at 18, there was a literacy program run by the government where Sirs and Mams would hold classes for the illiterate. I would go attend these classes against the will of my husband and my in-laws. They feared that I would run away with another man and abandon my children. But all I wanted to do was to be able to read and write. After I had a son, my husband left for the city with another woman. He does not write and he does not call and I am left wondering, what difference has it made in my life, now that I can read and write? But that was my fate. Today, my suffering has become the only inspiration for me to send my children to school.” – (Sirjana Thami, Suspa Chemawati, Dolakha) ‪#‎StriveStruggleThrive‬