Sunanda finds a passion and her voice

Sunanda is the only girl of her parents’ four children. Her parents are both roadside metalworkers, earning about 2,000 rupees ($65) per month to support the family, and her older brothers work as part-time caddies at a nearby golf course, contributing a small amount of money to household expenses whenever they can.

At 14, Sunanda should still be in school, however, in her community, most people do not believe in continuing a girl’s education once she reaches puberty. Therefore, Sunanda was taken out of school after the 6th grade. She had been depressed because of her bleak prospects for the future until she joined the AIC Basic Tailoring class last year. After spending 6 months learning the ins and outs of basic sewing, she has advanced to the Intermediate Tailoring class, to learn more difficult skills, and your donations of a month of training each, Jackson, Pooja, Cindy and Alice and Brad (x3), enabled AIC to give her training for six months.

Sunanda loves the excuse to leave the stresses of her home life behind for a bit and get out to do something that she finds enjoyable and challenging every afternoon. She is also developing close bonds with other young women her age from the surrounding community, and the girls have banded together to try to put collective pressure on their parents to allow them to rejoin school and delay their early marriages. In the meantime, she takes advantage of the opportunity to learn at the AIC Community centre when she goes for her tailoring class, and has many plans for her future!

Thank you, Jackson, Pooja, Cindy and Alice and Brad, for helping Sunanda stitch a bright future.