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A Voice For the Voiceless

The Advocacy Project helps marginalized communities to tell their story, claim their rights and produce social change. We recruit graduate students to volunteer as Peace Fellows with partners.

The Impact of Service "Speaking with locals and living in a country is the best way to learn about the real lives of citizens, not just the stories in the mainstream media. I will be more critical of what I read as a result of this experience. I also feel even more grateful for my education, and I feel a stronger responsibility to assist others who do not have resources or access to opportunities in their communities." Maria Skouras (New York University) volunteered in 2011 as a Peace Fellow for eHomemakers in Malaysia. For more 2011 feedback click here.

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Chandmati Pasi

Chandmati Pasi, a poor farmer from the Rupandehi District in Southern Nepal, has suffered from uterine prolapse for 18 years. She has accepted her condition and does not expect that she will ever be able to afford the surgery to correct it.

Chandmati was out collecting wood just 15 days after the birth of her last child when it happened. It was a rainy day and the roads were slick with mud, causing Chandmati to slip. As she fell, she experienced a sudden pain and the sensation of something dropping in her lower abdomen.

Despite the pain, Chandmati had more work to do. With the same unquestioning attitude with which she tells this story, Chandmati stood back up, adjusted the load of wood that was balanced on her head, and returned to her village to continue her day’s work.

Eighteen years have passed since Chandmati first felt her uterus fall. For 18 years she has suffered through pain, fever, difficulty walking and an inability to control her bladder. Sometimes she has to stay squatting in a field for up to an hour-and-a-half before she can overcome the pain that it takes to urinate.

Eating and drinking also cause her severe pain, so she has reduced her food and water intake – despite warnings from the local community health worker that she is cutting short her own life.

For Chandmati, treatment for uterine prolapse is not a realistic financial possibility. Unwilling to tell her husband about her condition at first, Chandmati turned to her mother-in-law, who helped her collect some money from friends and relatives for medical attention. Chandmati took this money to the local health post, where she was prescribed medicine that would cure a related infection, but would not treat her prolapse. She took the medicine for one week, with no improvement.

Years passed and Chandmati’s condition only worsened. At one point Chandmati consulted a local village doctor, who told her that her condition could be cured with six injections. Chandmati saved 100 rupees for the first injection, but after that was unable to pay for the remaining five. Chandmati has simply accepted the improbability of treatment and continued on with her life, cutting grass in the fields, collecting wood from the forest, and raising her surviving children.

Eighteen years after her first fall, Chandmati is undoubtedly now experiencing an advanced stage of prolapse that can only be treated by hysterectomy. For this surgery, Chandmati would have to travel to the nearest major town and then pay at least 5,000 rupees to have the surgery performed.

Chandmati says she cannot even afford to make the journey: “How can I pay for treatment?” she asks. “If someone can pay for my treatment, then I will go for surgery. Otherwise, I cannot. I am a farmer. I have a family to take care of.”

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