Daya gets a new home

In a culture that places great importance on family and tradition, bringing a child from the streets into your own home is not something people do lightly. Yet when Udita Kapoor met seven-year-old Daya in one of the poorest parts of Biratnagar, Nepal, she knew that was exactly what she wanted to do. Why? Because what she had learned through Viva Equip People had engaged her heart as well as her head.

The Viva Equip People training is currently running in Biratnagar, Butwal and Kathmandu, and Udita is one of 20 church and project staff taking the course in her area. Learning how to help children in the context of their culture, family and background, and understanding how to value and listen to them, were quite new concepts to Udita, and she found that it transformed the way she interacted with children.

She came across Daya during a visit to a community project, and discovered that he had no family to care for him. He was simply drifting, begging and relying on the charity of neighbours, and as he had been living this way for several years his health was very poor. Udita felt moved by Daya’s situation, and was compelled to respond in a much more personal way than she would have ever considered before. She chose to take him into her own home, giving him good food and proper clothes, and taking him to the hospital to receive proper treatment and medication.

Udita’s decision was not an easy one as many people, including her own parents, were quite opposed to her looking after Daya. But she now has the support of her new husband, who she married just a few months ago, and together they have given Daya a safe home and a new family.