Stella Tamang

Stella Tamang is revolutionizing education for rural Nepalese women. She is improving antiquated curricula by adding hands-on skills training programs and income generation activities that give parents an incentive to keep their girls in school. In doing so, she is giving girls a practical alternative to urban sweatshops.

Stella Tamang is combating the problem of child labor in urban sweatshops by instituting educational opportunities for them that incorporate income generating projects into the curriculum. The exploitation of child labor by factories throughout Nepal's urban centers continues to hamper the development of the country's youth. Stella is convinced that the way to improve the opportunities available to young workers is not simply by passing prohibitive laws, but rather by providing an educational institution which can provide for their livelihood in the present while providing the education that these children would be deprived of in a typical factory environment. By using this approach, Stella ensures that parents will allow their girls to attend her institution: they are not only gaining income for their families, but also learning skills for the future. Graduates of Stella's institution have several options after finishing their 18-month education period. Some of them continue within the formal education system, while others return to their home villages where they are able to use the income generating skills that they recently learned. Still others return home and set up similar "learn and earn" institutions in their home villages using whatever resources are locally available, thereby spreading this new educational paradigm throughout Nepal.

The present formal school system in Nepal fails many rural girls because it emphasizes skills which are not practical or valued for girls in the villages. The most immediate need of rural parents is to have their daughters watch younger children, work in the fields or go to the city and try to earn income for the family. While a formal education system is available for Nepalese children, it is not seen as a practical alternative for many Nepalese children who typically end their education at age 10. At this point, they are forced to find skilled jobs. However, since the formal education system places its emphasis on attaining degrees, at this age, the dropouts still lack the necessary skills to earn an adequate income. Many girls drop out of school early, before they learn the basics of reading and writing, in order to take on agricultural, home, or city work. Those that migrate to the urban centers in search of income suffer as a result of the poor treatment that they receive in factories, inadequate wages, and the instability of their living situations. The children are not taken care of and are at a very high risk for violence and abuse.
A handful of the girls who migrate to the cities learn some marketable skills such as carpet weaving or housework. However, the vocational education these girls receive ensures that they stay in the city, as it does not provide skills that can be transferred back to a village setting. Those that do not find work become easy prey for sex traffickers.
Despite the hardships that are a constant reality for girls who migrate to the cities, many poor rural parents still sacrifice their daughters education in order to send them to the city to earn income as soon as they are 13 or 14 years old.

Stella's alternative school system provides the necessary incentive for parents to send their girls to the Bikalpa school since it provides them with a way to earn money while they are attending school. The girls that attend the Bikalpa school are typically girls who would otherwise be forced to find employment in Nepal's cities, thereby sacrificing their education. Stella began the Bikalpa institution by recruiting female child laborers who recently had moved to Kathmandu from rural villages in search of income to help their families. After finding these girls, Stella approached their parents in their rural villages to allow the girls to attend her institution. However, later she found that she had considerably more success with the girls and with ensuring the development of additional Bikalpa schools if she first approached the parents in the villages and encouraged them to accept the Bikalpa arrangement. Then they would actively encourage their children who had already moved to Kathmandu to attend the institution. By approaching the parents first, they later became her allies in helping to construct new Bikalpa schools in their own villages, donating materials and land for the construction.
In each Bikalpa school the girls are taught classes in their native language, but are also taught to read and write in Nepali as well. Most of the girls who enter the 18-month program are illiterate.
At the Bikalpa school, part of each day is devoted to teaching students an income-generating skill which can include handicrafts, painting, and agriculture or weaving. These are skills which the students can take back to their rural areas and create income-generating opportunities for themselves in their villages. Also, the students sell their products and are able to bring a small amount of money home when they return to their families for vacation. The rest of the day is devoted to teaching children through creative, hands-on teaching methods which start with the basics of reading and writing. The key is that learning and earning are both taking place in a safe, controlled environment which benefits the girls and prevents them from being out on the street, looking for work.
After nine months in the Bikalpa program, the girls are intentionally sent back to their villages for a "vacation." The intention behind this trip is to have the girls look for opportunities in their villages - and see some hope for their future there. When they return from this vacation they begin planning for life after Bikalpa.
The goal of the Bikalpa program is to provide the girls that attend the school with options when their term at Bikalpa is finished - options that would not have been available had they attended the formal education system or had they entered the workforce.
In some cases, after completing the 18 month Bikalpa educational term, the students choose to re-enter the formal education system at grade 6. If they decide to do this, they can return to their village school or try to attend a formal education program in Kathmandu. For these girls, the Bikalpa school provides a special one-month "bridge" program which is designed to help them adapt to the more formal educational environment that they will be entering.
Students do not pay to go to the school. The Bikalpa school is completely self-sufficient with income being provided by the income-generating projects that the students are involved in on a daily basis. In addition, the students cook and grow their own food in the organic garden on the school premises. As new groups are recruited to enter the school, Stella gets agreements from the parents to allow the girls to participate for the entire 18 month term, provide some land for the establishment of a Bikalpa school is their area, provide their labor to build the school structure when their girls return to the village.
Many of the graduates of Stella's Bikalpa school have chosen to return to their rural villages where they are working to start new Bikalpa schools in these locations. Stella initially works with the girls and the village leaders in order to gain support for the new Bikalpa school. These girls take a "package" training course designed to aid them in the school startup. This training course includes instruction on small individual management training, nutrition, health and hygiene, and herbal medicine. When the girls return to their villages they begin by offering classes in such areas as literacy, health and income-generation. As the school gains acceptance, the classes that it provides become more formalized and it eventually operates using the same "learn and earn" methodology that was used in the Kathmandu school. The emphasis in each Bikalpa school is on teaching educational skills while at the same time teaching skills necessary for village life. Therefore each curriculum will be individually tailored to the specific needs of the individual village.
The ability of graduates of Stella's Bikalpa school in Kathmandu to start up and manage similar Bikalpa schools in their villages can be a positive influence on the girls once they return to their rural home villages. This is due to the fact that the girls typically live at the school in an Ashram community which allow them to avoid actually living with their parents who often are abusive or neglectful. They gain support and encouragement from the other members of the Bikalpa community.
Word of the Bikalpa approach to education is spreading and already in the Lalipur district parents have already promised the land and labor to build an extension school in the hope that a group of 24 girls from their region will be taken as the next batch in Kathmandu.

Stella Tamang grew up in the outskirts of Kathmandu and had to travel very far, by bus, into the city to attend school since there was no school close to her home. Since Stella came from a poor family herself, she had to work to earn family income at the same time she attended school. She herself grew up earning and learning simultaneously. Stella later realized that she would have to balance learning with gaining marketable skills for the labor force.Stella started a very small day-care program with about five children - in which she and her sister took full care of young children. Since there was still no school in the area, they soon started a small informal school. In the second year of the school program they had 50 children enrolled for 20 rupees a month. This was the start of what is today an 800 student alternative, but formally recognized day school. As the school has become so big and popular it now must focus on somewhat mainstream education. This school that Stella started is known as the Bhrikuti Secondary School.
While Stella had successfully initiated the Bhirikuti school she felt that she was still not addressing a key need in Nepal society - the need for a school that met the needs of the many child laborers that were streaming into Kathmandu from their rural villages. In order to do this, Stella designed a skill building program for girls. She has always felt is important to learn practical skills while getting an education. In 1993, this skill building program developed into the Bikalpa Gyan Kendra (Alternative Learning Center) giving classes for children working in Katmandu factories. This later became the 18 month boarding school program which she runs today. The boarding school is located on the same premises of the larger formal school.