Sabnam Mandal (Khatwe)
Sabnam Mandal (Khatwe) from Ward 2 of Dhanauji Rural Municipality in Dhanusha has completed her 12th grade education. Her family earns a livelihood as farmhands. Her father is a sharecropper who works 2 katthas and 10 dhurs of land. The yield from the land isn’t sufficient for even two months for the family of twelve. Therefore Sabnam, born into a family of Madheshi Dalits, has a
lot of experience struggling with poverty and want. Because of the financial hardships, she is constantly worried about how to continue her education. She is determined to make the leap toward higher education after being enrolled into a Bachelor’s program despite numerous worries and struggles.
Sabnam has been actively engaged in social work since an early age. She is currently busy with studying about the caste system, gender and sexuality, and in trying to explore and understand issues related to the Madheshi Dalit woman.
In the course of her studies, Sabnam wants to analyse the hardships, pains, struggles and dreams of Dalit women in even greater detail. Sabnam, who is learning to write stories of her lived experience, is also practising to make video stories and photo stories. She says about her learning, ‘In each little word is hidden a great deal of knowledge. I am learning to minutely investigate issues, and I am learning to question myself. I have found greater self-confidence, and there has been a change in how I speak about things. I will strive to advance the rights and dreams of Dalits and poor women. I want to always fight against the social evils of caste and gender-based discrimination.’
Sabnam Mandal (Khatwe) from Ward 2 of Dhanauji Rural Municipality in Dhanusha has completed her 12th grade education. Her family earns a livelihood as farmhands. Her father is a sharecropper who works 2 katthas and 10 dhurs of land. The yield from the land isn’t sufficient for even two months for the family of twelve. Therefore Sabnam, born into a family of Madheshi Dalits, has a
lot of experience struggling with poverty and want. Because of the financial hardships, she is constantly worried about how to continue her education. She is determined to make the leap toward higher education after being enrolled into a Bachelor’s program despite numerous worries and struggles.
Sabnam has been actively engaged in social work since an early age. She is currently busy with studying about the caste system, gender and sexuality, and in trying to explore and understand issues related to the Madheshi Dalit woman. She says that the caste system is the division of people into higher and lower castes. She had heard that the system was created by God. But her studies and interactions have shown her that it was false, and that the caste system was created by people to exploit and oppress others. Similarly, she had been extremely saddened to hear about an incident where a relative of the sexual minority had been discriminated against in their home and eventually expelled from home. She believes that the time has come for the discriminatory division of work between men and women to end, and even though natural differences exist between sexes, there must equal treatment at the social level.
In the course of her studies, Sabnam wants to analyse the hardships, pains, struggles and dreams of Dalit women in even greater detail. Sabnam, who is learning to write stories of her lived experience, is also practising to make video stories and photo stories. She says about her learning, ‘In each little word is hidden a great deal of knowledge. I am learning to minutely investigate issues, and I am learning to question myself. I have found greater self-confidence, and there has been a change in how I speak about things. I will strive to advance the rights and dreams of Dalits and poor women. I want to always fight against the social evils of caste and gender-based discrimination.’
