Anne Archer, Founder, Artists for Human Rights with Unatti Founder, Stephanie Waisler Rubin

“Unatti joined forces with LA-based Artists for Human Rights this
Thursday, participating in the Artists For Human Rights fundraiser. The foundation is thrilled to reach out to AFHR, a non-profit that uses visual and performing art to disseminate and promote the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. An internationally recognized doctrine like the Universal Declaration is an invaluable tool, offering inspiration and solidarity in corners of the world where
“human rights” can be a topic of controversy. In Nepal, where child
labor, sex trafficking, and armed conflict obscure the already
treacherous road to development, the fight for human rights is a daily
struggle. Unatti has long celebrated the power of music and art to
heal, connect, and grow, and in partnering with Artists for Human
Rights, we take a step towards a more peaceful and just Nepal.”

at the home of Children’s Art Village founder Mai Lai Breech

1100 Georgina Ave
Santa Monica 90402
12pm-4pm each day
Unatti handicrafts proceeds go directly to educating our Unatti girls and supporting our Unatti programs in Nepal.
We will be viewing the latest trailer of Unatti, the documentary produced by Off the Path Productions both days
and live Skype with the Unatti girls sunday at 3pm
Please bring a friend and share this post.

See you there,
Stephanie Waisler Rubin
Founder, Unatti Foundation

Thank you once again for blessing us with your contributions.

Stephanie Waisler Rubin

A Request from the Unatti Family’s first girl to finish high school:

” My name is Sangita and I have a message for you.”

Thank you once again for blessing us with your contributions.

Looking down from 2nd floor to first.

Rosani joined the Unatti family four months ago at the age of ten. Today she and I went to visit her family home for the first time since she came to live at Unatti house. It is only a 15-minute walk from the Unatti house, and from the outside it looks like most of the traditional 200-300 year old homes in Bhaktapur. We entered off of a small damp brick paved ally into a 5ft x 10ft space filled w/ dried grass, tin water jugs and a narrow ladder leading up to the next floor.

the second floor resident

I carefully climbed the 200-year-old ladder to the second floor where I was greeted by a goat sitting in a bed of straw on a window ledge. I was told the goat will be sold when it is large enough. Rosani’s grandmother and aunt were home and they were shock to see her and how healthy see looks after only four months.

Rosani, her mother and 4 siblings stayed in one room, sharing only one bed. The room was tidy and ceiling was draped with tattered water stained fabric.
We went up another 200-year-old ladder to the cooking area. The wood-burning stove was burning away making the third floor very smoky and warm. The third floor is also where grandmother sleeps. But I saw no bed and asked Rosani where her grandmother sleeps, “she takes out a straw matt and it goes there in the floor. That is where grandmother always sleeps.” You can clearly see the hardship in grandmothers 72 year old face but you can also see the happiness. Rosani is the first person in generations of this family to attend school. Rosani has no idea that simply  showing up each day, doing her studies, and learning to read and write is dramatically changing the future generations of her family.

Rosani with her 72 year old grandmother

Rosani was so happy to visit and tell her grandmother and sister about her new life. “ I have food every day, clean clothes and I am learning many things in school. Housemother helps me with studies and all sisters take care of me.”

Rosani’s father dies three years ago from what may have been heart disease. Her mother works as a laborer carrying bricks or cement.

Rosani the day she arrived at Unatti House April 2011

Her father worked as a low-caste shoemaker, doing his best to generate income to feed all of his children. They lived in a two-room home with dirt floors and two beds. The children were often hungry and few of them attended school. When Rostika was still in the womb her father intentionally overdosed leaving all the children with their mother who had no job skills. When Rostika was only seven months old her mother disappeared or ran away. It is unclear. As a result all the children went to live with their grandparents.

Today I went to the visit the home of the grandparents. The grandfather is no longer there. The burden of care taking all of the children proved too great for him and nine months ago he hung himself in their home.

Arriving at the village, a beautiful area high in the mountains, the area appears to be no worse off than other parts of Nepal. As we walked down a dirt path Rostika was clearly nervous. She recognized the path and we assured her we are only here for a visit and she was returning with us to the Unatti house after the visit. The local villagers met us, each one staring at Rostika in amazement. Many did not even recognize her. Five months of proper nutrition and a loving home have transformed her.

The exterior of grandmother’s house was deceiving. It did not look too bad but when I stepped in it was clear these are extremely poor people. The bottom floor is Where a goat or chicken would be kept if they had any. The stench confirmed that at one time they did. On the second floor there were two rooms, two beds, and a tiny wood burning stove. The stove was situated no more than 2 feet from the bed where Rostika five other siblings once slept. Grandmother was cooking what looked like some greens.

Rostika was happy to see her grandmother and two of her sisters. The other siblings were all away from the house possibly doing work as laborers or begging. As we left the village a young girl asked Rostika if she was going to stay here now, and she smiled a huge grin raised her chin up high and says in Nepali “No!”

She has a new family now where she is thriving. It is the Unatti family.

After Tika I was given a hand made card from each girl. We sat on the floor around our large dining table and I read aloud, my eyes filled with tears and my mind overwhelmed with the love in the room. Even after 11 years it is still difficult for me to own, these girls are a family because of Unatti, because of me. I did my best to express how grateful I am to have each and every one of these girls in my life. I am blessed.

It is said that music is a “universal language.” I believe the same applies for the visual arts. These statements are very much in evidence today. I have come with a group of relatively affluent English speaking Westerners. None of us speak Nepali. None of us knows poverty. None of us are Hindu.They speak little or no English and have never traveled outside their village.We encounter each other with an unmistakable curiosity borne of our differences. But then the music class begins. We start to discover things we have in common. The teacher strums her guitar. The sounds of the guitar start to fill the classroom. We hear it in common. We enjoy it in common. We smile and laugh in common. After twenty plus years teaching art to children in Los Angeles and giving them the space to paint and draw, explore and create, today I am the art teacher to some of the poorest children in Bhaktapur.

After an hour session of singing and music making with the HEARTbeats Foundation’s teachers, the children join me in a courtyard that was a motorcycle repair lot only months ago. While waiting for them to finish their music class, I set up an outdoor open-air art studio, paper plate pallets of brightly colored tempera paint and locally handmade lokta paper. Today we are creating self-portraits.My students today all come from families who live in extremely impoverished conditions. Families of 5-7 people living in one room with no running water or power. These families all struggle to provide basic necessities so art supplies are a huge luxury; and the freedom to use them up? Wow!
It is difficult to say in words how filled with purpose I feel. I need a moment to really take it all in.. Sitting in front of each child is a large piece of white paper. First, using pencil, an outline is made. The rough outline. I pass around new paint brushes until each child is holding one, excited to begin painting. We begin with mixing colors and painting simple shapes. I hear the nervous giggles and see the glancing around to see what each other is doing, but soon it grows quiet and they all seem to fall effortlessly into a flow. It is like a meditation somehow. They are so into the process they seemed transported. It is a moment to be savored.

As they finish, we display the portraits on a nylon string and again I am shocked to see them looking closely at what they had created. What follows is almost magical. We are all impressed and delighted by the portraits. Just like the music lesson that was just completed, the children are speaking in the universal language of line, shape, color and composition. We all see it. We all “speak” it. The children communicate with their paint brushes. As with the music, we are all elevated. We comment, we point, we smile, we appreciate. We become a small community of artists and art appreciators. We may be very different, but suddenly we have much in common. We have been connected by music and art. Instruments and colors. Melody and composition. Sound and shape.

These are the sounds and shapes we had hoped for. The sounds of the laughter of these children in need, and the shapes of their smiles.