Home Bahadur

Banke
Nepal

About me

Home Bahadur Tharu is the youngest son of a family in Banke district, Nepal. His father, Mangal Singh Tharu, is poor, illiterate and works as a daily labourer for his landlord as he has no land of his own to farm. They live in a small mud and thatched house. His mother is a housewife who is also illiterate. She looks after the house and children at home.

My Story

Home Bahadur has two brothers and a sister who study in a nearby public school in grades six and seven. Although Home Bahadur was already ten years old, he had been deprvied of his right to an education due to his being born deaf. As a result of this disability, everybody discriminated against him, including his parents. While his siblings attended school he helped around the house doing household chores and grazing livestock.

His brothers and sisters never played with him due to his vulnerability. Home aws always worried and unhappy and felt isolated. Neither the family nor the community ever tried to understand his feelings or needs. Everybody would ignore him and make no effort to communicate with him.

This was Home's life until a year ago, when Home's father came to Chisapani, Banke for a wedding. During that time he heard about the school for deaf children being run in Chisapani by RHERI, a local NGO. Home's father was very curious to learn more about the school and visited the RHERI office the next day. He talked about his some, Home Bahadur, to the RHERI staff and RHERI committed to help his son by enrolling him in their school and basic sign language classes.

Home's father made up his mind to admit his son to this school. But the biggest challenge was the distance from where he lived to the school in Chisapani was almost 20 kilometers. Luckily, Home's grandparents were living in Chisapani. Home started living with his grandparents in order to join RHERI's school for the deaf and attend sign language training which was supported by Deaf Child Worldwide.

Home learned very quickly in comparison to his other classmates. Having completed the sign language training, Home can now communicate effectively and frequently. RHERI suggested to Home's father to enroll him in a public school to continue his education. The teachers in these schools were also trained in sign language. Currently, Home is in the third grade in a public school named Dahit Primary school, Chisapani. Home says "My only aim is to attend school and get an education and minimize the suffering of deaf children like me - those spending a humiliated and sad life". He communicated this through sign language.

Sign language training with teachers © NDCS

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Letter from Home Bahadur

I would like to share some of my grievances of the past days. My grief knew no bounds when my brothers and sisters were enrolled in a local public school and I was not.

I could hardly sleep that day and wept the whole night. Nobody bothered to come and console me. I considered myself the most unfortunate person on the earth. Even my own parents could not understand my feelings and ignored me, considering me worthless. Moreover, the other boys in the community also made fun of me which I could simply guess through their body language.

Fortunately, my father came to know about a deaf school at Chisapani run by RHERI, a local NGO. I was admitted to that school by my father and I learnt the skills of sign language. Now I can easily communicate with the people through sign language.

I have also been admitted into a public school. I am studying in the third grade. My teachers love me and are very kind. My classmates also communicate and like to be my friend. My ambition is to become a teacher, particularly of deaf children, so that no deaf child will suffer and be humiliated like I was.

Home Bahadur Tharu