My name is kumari Mijar. I am 12 years old. My home place is in Sarlahi Rajghat. But my parents migrated to Dhading Mahadev Besi. I am the daughter of father late Chote Mijar and mother Dil kumari Mijar. There are five members [father, mother, two sisters and me] in my family. My own father had died before I born.
I used to live with my step father who loved me as his own daughter. My all the family members were illiterate. My parents worked in Dhading Mahadev besi at stone quarry. At that time I was a small baby. I started to work when I was at the age of six. My family was poor; they worked very hard to provide food for us. All the children of my age used to work in the stone quarry.
I didn’t get sufficient food so I suffered from malnutrition and got diseases as well. I got many injuries; cuts and hit by hammer many times.
They did not go to school due to the reason of poverty. I worked there from morning to late night. Besides working in the stone quarry I had to wash clothes, collect fire wood, cook food and wash utensils for my parents.
We all worked very hard to earn our lively hood. I was always busy to work; I had no time to have had rest properly. I was very thin and skinny. We did not have any other sources of income.
My all family members are illiterate and couldn’t get a good job. So our parents and I as well started working at stone quarry. We couldn’t able to earn sufficient food for all my family. So we always work as far as possible to earn money. We lived in very bad condition in a small hut with no electricity and no drinking water. We had to work under contactor and get money from him. If we did not work enough, the contactor did not give money to buy food.
I didn’t get sufficient food so I suffered from malnutrition and got diseases as well. I got many injuries; cuts and hit by hammer many times. When I got injuries, I didn’t even visit any hospital or Doctor either because of our poverty. I did not have any good warm clothes to wear. Life was very bad during at stone quarry. I am 10 years old but still I look like younger than my age. It is due to the lack of nutrition at stone quarry.
When I was crushing stones at stone quarry, Help to Educate staff came to visit at work place. They were looking at me while I was working. They came to me and asked about my name, age, family and so on. I was very nervous taking with them but there were so many people surrounding at stone quarry. They spoke with my parents as well. Later they said that they are helping children like me who were very in need.
They asked me and my parents about it. I was very happy when they told me help and support for education. Then I came with to Little Gems Girls hostel in Khokana, Lalitpur. I was very happy seeing hostel and meeting with new hostel friends. All hostel friends are older than me. They were also from different work places. There family back grounds are very much similar like mine.
At first time I was very much nervous because all the people in the hostel were new for me but I did not feel any difficulties to adjust myself in the hostel. For me all the things were new, new place new people and new way of life was totally different for me. I felt very much excited to live in the hostel.
Since then I got chance to study. I have been learning many things since I am in hostel. My life before and now is totally different. I am studying at Grade one. I am studying very hard to make my life happy. Thank you for everything!
Kumari has been living in Little Gems Hostel since she was 9 years old.
