Nepali nominated for CNN Heroes-2012 award

Nepali social worker Pushpa Basnet has been nominated for the CNN Heroes Award 2012. 

The 28-year-old Basnet has been nominated for her service to children whose parents are serving time in various prisons in the country.

“The children must not be forced to live behind bars with their parents,” said Basnet, who started her non-profit organisation Early Childhood Development Centre in 2005.

Ms. Basnet was pursuing an undergraduate course in social welfare when she first visited the women’s cell in the Kalimati Police Station in Kathmandu six years ago to enquire about a one-year-old child living with his mother in the cell. That incident made her work for the children of imprisoned parents, Basnet said. Currently, 40 such children are living in her shelter, where she provides them with food, clothing, education, medicines and all other basic things. She said she is giving shelter to children from prisons in Dhading, Pokhara, Jajarkot, Phidim, Birgunj and Nepalgunj.
Ms. Basnet also runs a day care programme for children under six years of age and a residential home where mostly older children are given education, food, medical care and “a chance to live a normal life.”

Anuradha Koirala, another Nepali social worker, had won the award in 2010.

Some more related links:

Pulling children out of Nepal’s prisons

‘Mother’ to 35 children