Celebration of Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day is a celebration honoring the not only mothers but also motherhood, maternal bonds, and the influence of mothers in society. We have discussed in other posts about the plights of mothers in Nepal. We have highlighted that as mothers are migrating to the cities looking for better employment opportunities, the rural areas are becoming “villages of children and grandparents”. In these settings, the mother’s day celebration is a celebration of grandmothers as well.  

A tradition like many others:

In Nepal, the mother’s day is celebrated late April or early May. People show their love and appreciation to their mother by spending time with her, cooking for her, and buying her gifts. The children who live away from their mother come to visit her with gifts or sweets.

Rukmini Tradition:

As we celebrate mother’s day, a moment to reflect on the organization’s inspiration and namesake, Rukmini:

Rukmini was able to overcome becoming a child bride to raise a successful family, with education as the cornerstone. Her courage and strength is the inspiration behind our foundation.

Similar to Rukmini, we have encountered many such courageous women. For this years’ mother’s day, we like to honor Thulimaya Tamang,  our oldest grandmother of Rakaskhola. Thulimaya is taking care of her two granddaughters Amita and Ramita who are studying at grade 4.

Honoring Thulimaya

Rukmini foundation celebrated a mother’s day event with 42 participants. Rukmini mentor Sabina Bisunkhe welcomed Thulimaya Tamang, moms club members, and RF Scholars.

Usha Adhikari told that this day was a celebration of the strong ladies such as Thulimaya Tamang who committed to the girl’s education.

The celebration continued with a talent show that included a folk dance performed by Scholar Purnima and a poetry recital by Kritika Thapa.

Gifts

Thulimaya Tamang, distributed school uniform (bag, shoes and extra books) to current scholars who are studying at grade 4 to grade 10.

Ruku moms club members had provided the gift for Thulimaya Tamang with clothes and combs. Thulimaya Tamang was happy to saw this gift.

No celebration is complete without cake:

The chief guest Aama cut the delicious cake. All participant took their turn in feeding cake to  Aama. Most of scholars cake feeding their mothers and mother feeding cake their daughter. They all were enjoying the mother day celebration. After mother day celebration, all participants dance with Nepali song.

Reflection:

Sanju shah (mother of Purnima Shah) said “This program is really heart touching because my mother place is far from here, I cannot go to meet my mother, but here, we celebrate this day with our oldest mother. I am really happy. Another thing is that from such type of program, our children will also be able to learn to respect senior people.”

Aama: “I am very much happy to get enough daughter and granddaughter. I wish to all of the girls should have good study and get success in their life.”

About Arun Aryal

An assistant professor of Management Information Systems at California State University Los Angeles (CSULA), Arun teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on Information Systems and Analytics. Prior to CSULA, he worked as a Teaching Fellow for Georgia State University (GSU) where he was part of the team that designed GSU’s enterprise systems concentrations within the computer information systems major. He is the recipient of the Teaching Excellence Award (2014 & 2015) and his research focuses on the intersection of emerging technologies, analytics, and enterprise systems. He earned a Ph.D. in Computer Information Systems from Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University and has worked in the IT industry for about seven years prior to entering the academic world. For the foundation, Arun provides guidance on how to make the best use of technology to solve problems in developing countries, and also lends his teaching philosophies and ideals as we look to innovate around education for students in rural areas of Nepal.
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