Maggie Namjou

 

Maggie Namjou:   

Maggie Namjou has spent more than 25 years dedicated to improving the lives of children suffering from injustice, poverty, or abuse in Nepal. As the Founder of Aastha House, or House of Hope in the Nepali language, Maggie Namjou gives hope to children who otherwise have nowhere to turn. Providing them with a stable home, Maggie Namjou does more than feed, clothe, and educate these children. Maggie Namjou gives them a stable and loving home life where they are secure, and she and her Nepali staff provide each of the children with consistent care, love, and compassion.

Since Aastha House opened in 1997, Maggie Namjou has welcomed volunteers to immerse themselves in these children's lives and assist the house parents with all of their daily needs. In addition to supervising Aastha House to ensure these children thrive, Maggie Namjou funded the project on her own until she received nonprofit organization standing in 2006. Maggie Namjou's efforts were chronicled in a book, The Aastha House Project (House of Hope) by Naomi Johson, who spent 5 months living in the home and chronicling the lives of the children, who told their own stories through photography and writing.

 

Maggie Namjou earned her B.A. from Boston University and her MA from School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont, with an emphasis on international development. Later, she did post graduate work in anthropology at the University of Washington in Seattle. After graduation, Maggie Namjou began working for a German human rights organization based in Frankfurt, The International Society for Human Rights. Maggie Namjou first witnessed the natural splendor of Nepal in 1984 after a holiday there, and chose to return to live permanently in 1985, where she has remained for extended periods over the last 25 years (in spring of 2010). Upon returning from her first visit to Nepal, she abandoned her plans to further her education at the Tufts Univ. School of Law and Diplomacy where she had been accepted to attend law school. She felt a magnetic pull to Nepal and, although not knowing fully what her ultimate purpose there would be, she remained and began work in fields ranging from teaching and occasional trek leading to work for various development agencies.

 

Maggie Namjou remains deeply involved in women's rights issues by supporting the South Asian initiative the Center for Reproductive Freedom. To help prevent the trafficking of women from many remote districts of nepal area, Maggie Namjou consults on literacy and micro-lending programs in an attempt to supply young women who are high risk for being trafficked to India with education and vocational skill training income.

 

In addition to Aastha House, Maggie Namjou started a women's cooperative in 1992 that sells traditional artwork created by women in low-income households to free trade stores in Europe and the United States. Maggie Namjou also founded The Rising Child Nepal Foundation in 2006 to support Aastha House as well as her project in remote districts of Nepal educating girls who might otherwise be sold into bonded servitude, as well as her programs in education and nutrition in several slum areas of Kathmandu, where she, working with another Nepali organization, provides more than 100 children daily with free lunches and drop-in educational classes in basic literacy. In 2006, she also began offering scholarships to Dalit children in the Kalimati slums of Katmandu through the foundation. Maggie Namjou is a member of and active supporter of various associations including the Southern Poverty Law Center in the USA, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Animal Nepal, and the Best Friends Animal Shelter in Utah. She also supports several other Nepali organizations, both through her foundation and through her moral support who are involved in keeping girl children in school, preventing child trafficking, and helping the plight of street children. Among these organizations she supports are Maiti Nepal and CWIN, the Child Workers in Nepal.

 

 

I established the Aastha House, which means House of Hope, in 1997 to serve as a home for children living on the street in Budhanilkantha, a small town outside of Kathmandu, Nepal. Inspired by the children living in the house, I joined with Naomi Johnson to author The Aastha House Project, a book of photographs and stories from the children living in Aastha House. Many of these children were previously subjected to abuse and child labor. The Aastha House Project gave these Nepali youth a voice with which they could share their own experience of Nepal and also enabled them to communicate the hope that inspires them to overcome tragedy and adversity. The Aastha House Project was undertaken in October 2005 shortly after Maoist rebels had announced a three-month ceasefire after ten years of almost unrelenting violence. At the time, King Gyanendra faced great opposition for suspending the Nepali constitution and disbanding the government officials who had been put into office through democratic election. When hostilities resumed in January 2006, the project was cut short by threatening bombings and strikes. Despite the violent political climate of Nepal at the time, the children living in Aastha House at the time created art that is full of freshness, optimism, and aspiration. The project has taken on a life of its own, and I cannot be happier with the unbelievably inspiring results. For more information about The Aastha House Project, or to see some of the photographs in the book, please visit TheAasthaHouseProject.blogspot.com. Copies of the book can also be purchased at Lulu.com as a method of fundraising for the continued assistance of Nepali children in need.

 

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