"If I had not come to the Prison Fellowship home, my life would be a donkey life, married in a village, having children, working in the fields, oppressed by my husband, my father in law, and my mother in law."

Pramila

The literacy rate for girls in Nepal is below 50 percent. Girls are often subjected to arranged marriages in their teenage years. When a girl leaves her family and moves in with her husband's family, she becomes the lowest in the chain of command, expected to do endless menial labor at the bidding of her husband and in laws. She will haul water, collect firewood, till the fields, cook, wash, and bear children. She will be the last to eat after all the males and elders have had their fill. Often, these young girls are malnourished even as they are bearing children. The failure to produce a male child can be a reason for punishment, shame, and abandonment.

Pramila was 4 years old and living in a rural village in Eastern Nepal when her father and grandfather went to prison. Her father requested the head of Prison Fellowship to take Pramila to the Prison Fellowship children's home in Kathmandu where children of prisoners are supplied with love, food, healthcare, clothing, enrollment in school, and teaching from the Bible. Pramila lived in the home for 12 years and, unlike most girls in Nepal, completed grade 10, earning her School Leaving Certificate. She "graduated" from the Prison Fellowship home and joined Foresight. Since then, she has not only completed grades 11 and 12, but has earned a Bachelor Degree in Social Work and a Masters Degree in Child Development.

After working for two years as the residential guardian and guide in a student hostel, she has become the manager of a project to locate girls who have been abused or trafficked, provide temporary shelter for them, and find an appropriate longer term placement for their rehabilitation. With her modest income, she has helped support her extended family which lives together in a one room home. Her parents and younger sisters have decided to become Christ-followers as a result of her care and encouragement.