Anjali Himalayan Children’s Charities Earthquake Victim

7-year-old Anjali is in grade 2. Her mother was killed in the earthquake when their family house collapsed. She and her elder sister, Pushpa, now live in a remote mountain village with their young stepmother while their father moves from place to place to find work. Anjali is from the so-called “untouchable” caste, which is considered to be polluted in Hindu culture, and thus she and her family experience regular and systematic discrimination in their everyday lives. After her mother’s death, her father remarried within one month to a teenage girl. Anjali enjoys reading storybooks and her favorite subject in school is Nepali.

Finally the day arrived and we had to arrive at the venue by 3. We rushed to the models and did the final fittings. By that time, Dinesh Uncle, Hira Aunt and Bruce Uncle had arrived. As my sequence was on the 4th we had a huge rush backstage that let me meet them only for a brief minute and we couldn’t even click a picture together. Show started at 7. After the third sequence we had the models change into our designs. Finally, our design was on the runway, and we walked at the end of the sequence with our showstopper, Simpal Kharel. While walking on the runway, there were a huge number of audiences, included; designers, press media, journalists, photographers, ambassadors, etc. After our sequence, we went backstage and we really had a roller coaster of emotions. All those sleepless nights, stresses, no meal days and all the difficulties we went through were finally over. It was worth everything. This concludes my three years of learning and we had the chance to showcase it to the crowd and people. After our sequence we finally had the time to breather. All along these past three months it felt as if somebody had put on something in our neck as we were suffocating but now it felt as if it had been let go. We could breathe in peace.

After the runway we had a huge feast and that tasted like the best meal that I had for the entire life.