We salute our 12 Law students and 10 full-fledged lawyers! We are extremely proud of each of them as this career choice is an act of courage. Lawyers in Nepal tend to be underpaid and underemployed. Remarkably, 21 of our 22 law students and graduates are women in a field that is predominately male. They all recognize that lawyers are one of the most effective ways to advocate for reforms.
When ANSWER was founded 23 years ago, few (if any) parents of ANSWER students had TVs, listened to the news, or read newspapers. Few occupations were discernable to the poor back then, and nearly every boy or girl wanted to be a doctor or a nurse, or perhaps an engineer. Then, in 2010, a 9th grader was vetted by ANSWER who proclaimed she wanted to be a lawyer.
“A lawyer?” I replied in disbelief, “Do you know what a lawyer does?” “How do you know about lawyers?” As in most of the developing world, most news in these circles comes through the grapevine, and someone had mentioned lawyers to Apsara when she was young, and she was immediately convinced that this was her calling!
It just so happened that Doug (now ANSWER’s board president) was a lawyer and chose to sponsor Apsara, and to counsel her. When her parents and relatives kept pushing her to become a nurse, Doug reassured her to follow her heart, and so Apsara became our first law student, and broke it wide open for others to follow.
The next year we had 2 young women opt for law school, 3 more young women the following year, and so it continued year after year until this past year we have our 22 nd law student! Since gender equality in barely recognized in Nepal, a female lawyer is as rare as a female engineer, and we have a surfeit of women in both fields! ANSWER students are breaking the glass ceiling left and right, in addition to helping undermine the caste system.
Getting into law school is difficult, graduating after 5 grueling years of law school is even harder, passing the bar in extremely tough, and finding a job is formidable. So far, all of our students are on course, 10 of them lawyers, and 12 more in the offing. Of the 10 who are lawyers, we would like to especially congratulate Saru Tamakhu and Pabitra Bhandari , both of whom passed the civil service exam to land coveted jobs with the government this past year!
Saru was only 6 years old in 2004 when her sponsorship began through Mary Lynn and daughter Brittany of NY. ANSWER was in its infancy and supported children of all ages back then. As I recall, Saru struggled at first, but then found herself by the time she was in high school. After passing the bar and the civil service exam, Saru began working as a government attorney and was posted in a district court at Siraha (city in SE Nepal) about 6 months ago. Not long after, she was transferred to Kathmandu to undertake a Master’s degree program there. She believes she has filed around 100 criminal cases for the government and enjoys her work. She recently married in her hometown of Bhaktapur.
Pabitra was eight years old when her father (a migrant laborer in a Middle Eastern country) died in an auto accident. Her mother supported her by working as a school custodian to pay for her private school fees. Five years later (In 2010), as a 13-year-old 7th grader, she became an ANSWER-sponsored student supported by Bonnie and Dave in AZ. After graduating from Law school, Pabitra was awarded a coveted medal for her outstanding academics by the President of Nepal! She aslo won a scholarship and completed her coursework for a Master’s degree in Law while she also studying for and passing the civil service exam this past year. Pabitra now works as The District Attorney General in southern Nepal (Rupandehi). She has advocated and filed more than 150 criminal cases on behalf of the Nepal Government. When she tells us that she is “happy with her job and helping people fight for their justice,” I can’t help but feel she is destined to be Nepal’s future Kamala Harris.
Of the 8 other lawyers, 3 have just graduated and are waiting to take the bar exam, hopefully in November; 3 are employed and trying to follow in Saru’s and Pabitra’s footsteps and pass the civil service exam for a government career; and 2 are studying abroad. Apsara (ANSWER’s first lawyer) obtained some law experience in Nepal and then went to Canada with her husband. She has had to study for two years just to become a paralegal. Binita is struggling financially in England in her studies in international commercial law, and it is still unclear to what end that will lead. Nevertheless, we admire their success and courage, for even a skilled lawyer would have to relearn the laws of another country which is tantamount to going back to law school!
Finally, there are our 12 current law students, all doing well, scattered throughout the 5-year curriculum. These students are among our most well rounded (as most of then have taken Humanities in their 2 years of college prep – Grades 11 & 12). They along with our graduates are actively involved students in ANSWER events. Many participate as officers in our Alumni Association (AAA), and as “interogators” during the Q&A at AAA monthly meetings. We are blessed to have two graduates also serving as ANSWER-Nepal board members. We salute them all for their hard work and leadership!
