December 4, 2012
What do you do with your children if you are a mother sentenced to a jail term in Nepal? If you don’t have someone to take care of the kids, they must go to jail with you.
28-year-old Pushpa Basnet is trying to change all that and, for her efforts, she was named CNN’s 2012 “Hero of the Year” at a glittering ceremony Sunday night in Los Angeles.
Anderson Cooper hosted the event at the Shrine Auditorium. It was an all-star tribute including Susan Sarandon, 50 Cent, Maria Bello, Adrien Brody, Viola Davis, Josh Duhamel, Jeff Gordon, Cullen Jones, Jane Lynch and Rainn Wilson.
Each of the 10 CNN Heroes nominees received $50,000 in recognition of their work, and Basnet’s nonprofit, the Early Childhood Development Center, received an additional $250,000 grant.
Basnet’s Work
As one of the poorest countries in the world, Nepal lacks the social safety net that exists in most Western nations. Space is extremely limited in the few children's homes affiliated with the government. So when no local guardian is available, an arrested parent often must choose between bringing their children to jail with them or letting them live on the streets. Nepal's Department of Prison Management estimates that there are at least 80 children living in the nation's prisons.
"It's not fair for (these) children to live in the prison because they haven't done anything wrong," said Basnet, who started a nongovernmental organization to help. "My mission is to make sure no child grows up behind prison walls."
Basnet is one of several in Nepal who have started groups to get children out of prison. Since 2005, she has assisted more than 100 children of incarcerated parents. She runs a day care program for children under 6 and a residential home where mostly older children receive education, food, medical care and a chance to live a more normal life.
Since 2005, Pushpa Basnet has assisted more than 100 children of incarcerated parents.
"I had a very fortunate life, with a good education," Basnet said. "I should give it to somebody else."
Basnet was just 21 when she discovered her calling, she said. While her family ran a successful business, she was studying social work in college. As part of her studies, she visited a women's prison and was appalled by the dire conditions. She also was shocked to discover children living behind bars.
Basnet decided to start a day care to get incarcerated children out from behind the prison walls. While her parents were against the idea at first -- she had no job or way to sustain it financially -- eventually they helped support her. But prison officials, government workers and even some of the imprisoned mothers she approached doubted that someone her age could handle such a project.
"When I started, nobody believed in me," Basnet told reporters. "People thought I was crazy. They laughed at me."
Basnet was undaunted. She got friends to donate money, and she rented a building in Kathmandu to house her new organization, the Early Childhood Development Center. She furnished it largely by convincing her parents that they needed a new refrigerator or kitchen table; when her parents' replacement would arrive, she'd whisk the old one to her center.
Just two months after she first visited the prison, Basnet began to care for five children. She picked them up at the prison every weekday morning, brought them to her center and then returned them in the afternoon. Basnet's program was the first of its kind in Kathmandu; when she started, some of the children in her care had never been outside a prison.
Two years later, Basnet established the Butterfly Home, a children's home where she herself has lived for the past five years. While she now has a few staff members who help her, Basnet is still very hands on.
"We do cooking, washing, shopping," she said. "It's amazing, I never get tired. (The children) give me the energy. ... The smiles of my children keep me motivated."
Coordinating all of this is no easy task. But at the Butterfly Home, the older kids help care for the younger ones and everyone pitches in with household chores.
When Basnet hears about an imprisoned child, she'll visit the prison -- even in remote areas of the country -- and tell the parent what she can provide. If the parent agrees, Basnet brings the child back.
She is still eager, however, for the children to maintain relationships with their parents. During school holidays, she sends the younger children to the prisons to visit, and she brings them food, clothing and fresh water during their stay. Ultimately, Basnet wants the families to reunite outside prison, and 60 of her children have been able to do just that.
In 2009, Basnet started a program to teach the parents how to make handicrafts, which she sells to raise money for the children's care. Both mothers and fathers participate. It not only gives them skills that might help them support themselves when they're released, but it also helps them feel connected to their children.
"Often, they think that they're useless because they're in prison," Basnet said. "I want to make them feel that they are contributing back to us."
Making ends meet is always a struggle, though. The children help by making greeting cards that Basnet sells as part of her handicraft business. In the past, she has sold her own jewelry and possessions to keep the center going.
Her biggest concern is trying to find ways to do more to give the children a better future. She recently set up a bank account to save for their higher educations, and one day she hopes to buy or build a house so they'll always have a place to call home.
The $300,000 CNN award should go a long way in realizing her dreams.
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