CASE STORIES
Fighting Poverty, Together
Story from Rukum under Peacebuilding

On a sunny hillside in Rukum, a group of women in bright cotton saris are working in a field - a commonplace scene. But this is a remarkable group of women.
Each one is a widow, and most lost their husbands suddenly, violently.
In 1998, Rukum District was the flashpoint of the violent insurgency that plunged Nepal into 14 years of virtual civil war. So many died. Police, Maoists, party activists, public servants... and ordinary villagers. Their wives and children were left to fend for themselves in a society too poor to afford social security, and too damaged to provide communal support.
Around Rukum, they say that, if first thing in the morning you see a widow's face, you will have bad luck all day.

But more than this, CSDC has helped them find a unity of purposes that brings together women from both sides of the terrible conflict to begin community healing. As one woman put it: "Now we can join together to fight poverty and discrimination, not each other."