Rukum in the eyes of its children

This week 30 years ago, the Maoists launched their armed struggle from the rugged mountains of Rukum, attacking a police post in Athbiskot on 13 February 1996 (Editorial, page 2).

Today, Rukum has been partitioned into East and West, and is an electoral battleground for the 5 March poll between the former Supreme Commander of the Maoist party Pushpa Kamal Dahal (Prachanda) and his erstwhile guerrilla commander Janardan Sharma (Prabhakar). 

The Maoist revolution was all about liberating the people of districts like Rukum from poverty, oppression and feudalism. The comrades promised to end inequality, social injustice, and exclusion in an insurgency they called ‘People’s War’. 

Today, 20 years after the conflict ended with the loss of 17,000 lives, not much has changed in both parts of Rukum. A motorable road does connect the district to the rest of the country, and it is the route many people have taken to migrate out. 

In one village in Rukum West, some young men paid as much as Rs8 million to human traffickers to take them to the United States. Some reached the US, but have been deported back to Nepal.

Dahal has dropped the label ‘Maoist’ from his newly minted Nepali Communist Party and is contesting from Rukum East, while Sharma split from the party and is contesting from Rukum West as a Pragatisheel Loktantrik Party candidate. Newer faces from Rastriya Swatantra Party and Ujyalo Nepal Party are also in the race.

Rukum was affected by the 2023 earthquake that killed 153 people and damaged 10,000 homes in Rukum West and Jajarkot. Many health facilities and schools collapsed, and one of them was Bheri Dovan Secondary School. 

Reconstruction has been slow, but Finland and UNICEF have built a semi-permanent transitional learning centre with a gender segregated sanitation facility. 

STORIES IN PICTURES  

The project gave digital point-and-shoot cameras to 15 students between ages 11-16 who were interested in photography to take pictures of their daily lives. Eight girls and seven boys got a three-day basic training in photography.

“The reason we chose this school was because it was completely destroyed and they have quite a few children from marginalised communities,” says Sabrina Guruacharya of UNICEF. “We wanted to invest in the creative skills of children and provide the space for them to tell their own stories in pictures.” 

The theme of the photography workshop was to reflect on how the community was rebuilding after the earthquake. But instead of photos of destruction and ruined houses, the children took pictures of their family members, neighbours, friends, beloved pets and household livestock. 

They also took pictures of bridges, roads and telecom towers, neighbours harvesting crops, family members playing.

In one frame, a girl is cooking over a traditional stove even as she scrolls through her smartphone. In another, six neighbourhood children are made to pose in a line -- a heartwarming portrayal of childhood innocence.

“We are looking at new ways of storytelling that are inclusive and where young people are at the heart of the story. It’s their story, it’s them narrating,” says Guruacharya. Selected photographs were exhibited at Patan Darbar Square in January, as well as in the Rukum West school itself. 

The project is a direct beneficiary of an initiative in Finland where students raise money every time they walk to school. Finnish children then donate the money to their school, which in turn helps fund education in countries like Nepal. 

In a video about the program, participating students talk about learning the basics of photography such as different image sizes and camera angles, shooting at eye level and avoiding digital zoom for better results, understanding the perspective of light and motion, rules of composition and different lighting conditions, among others. 

It looks like some of the talented students are set to become content creators when they grow up, and UNICEF is now looking to replicate this in Madhes Province.

The photographs taken by the children illustrate their everyday lives and concerns, which seems far away from the manifestos and stale electoral promises of candidates.