SETU Nepal is a small team that works with HIV positive women, as well as orphaned children in the Kathmandu Valley region of Nepal. The work they do is truly amazing and despite their limited personnel and resources, they have achieved so many great things. Not only do they run capacity building training programs for the women they work with, but they also run a small home for children, where they provide them with an education as well as teach them life skills like cooking and crafting.
Seeing all the amazing work that my host organization does and given the extremely difficult situations of those that they seek to help, I have oftentimes found myself feeling guilty. One of the main things I have been struggling with in terms of this guilt is how privileged I am. Through various attempts to navigate and reflect upon this privilege and my positionality as a white, middle-class, educated woman living in Canada, I find myself asking the same questions again and again. How can I possibly be any help as an intern? Who am I to even try to help? What if they don’t want my help?
At my first meeting with the beneficiaries of SETU, I was nervous that they would be put off by my presence as a white girl from Canada who does not speak their language. I sat there on the video call, smiling and nodding while the group chatted in Nepalese and my supervisor frantically typed a play-by-play translation to me in our WhatsApp chat, and I couldn’t help but feel guilty simply for being there. However, this guilt was quickly dissipated, as the women welcomed me with open arms and were happy to have me join them. What followed was 20 minutes of the women showing off their various works to me, ranging from handmade clothing and recycled items made from old rice bags, to knit headbands and strings of beads.
The kindness and positivity of the women I met with helped me finally come to terms with my privilege and the guilt I was feeling as a result of this. It made me re-evaluate my role as an intern and attempt to better understand the part I am playing in supporting SETU and their beneficiaries. Ultimately, it helped me finally see that this experience is not just about me. I spent too much time focusing on my own guilt, when I should have been focusing on my role as a supporting figure. Luckily, one of the tasks they would like me to do during my time with SETU is to write success stories of the women they have worked with. I am most looking forward to this as it is a way for me to use my skills to share the stories of these women. Their stories deserve to be heard and their accomplishments deserve to be known, and it is my hope that I can successfully share them in the best way possible.