Ends of the Earth Cycling loves being a part of RAGBRAI (Registers Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa) and in July of 2023, we saw 28 cyclists and 5 support staff #PrayPedalRepeat for the youth of Nepal on our Iowa Bike Ride.
On that tour, you collectively cycled 11,200 miles and God provided $43,150.34 to promote and resource the youth ministry, through our partners in Nepal, She is Safe.
The She is Safe programs have contributed to a reported 85 percent decrease in the sale of girls in certain territories where every girl over the age of 12 was sold.
When Shanti was only 15 years old, her relatives sent her to work in the Middle East to earn money for the family. Where she lives in Nepal, there are few opportunities to earn an income, so desperate families frequently send relatives abroad to work and send money home. Instead of finding the nice job she was promised, Shanti was tortured at the hands of her employers through frequent beatings and other forms of abuse. Shanti was desperate to escape, but her pleas to return to Nepal were met with a demand for $2,000 to release her from her contract. Knowing this was impossible to pay, she was forced to stay through the contract despite being severely mistreated.
Once her contract was up, Shanti returned to Nepal to get married. Her situation grew so desperate that she had to borrow money at high interest to send her husband to work in Saudi Arabia. When she became the mother of two daughters, Shanti was terrified they would have to endure a life of exploitation like hers.
This terror intensified when she was notified that her husband was in prison in Saudi Arabia, and the money lenders she borrowed from to send him overseas showed up at her door demanding to be repaid. Shanti had no way to repay the loan. She believed her only option would be to leave her daughters with relatives in the village without their parents and return to work in the Middle East.
Where they live in Nepal, it is extremely dangerous for girls as they are frequently sold into sexual slavery or forced labor due to the low value placed on girls combined with rampant poverty.
This is when She Is Safe coworkers came into Shanti’s life to help her build a safer future. They helped to provide her with a Water Buffalo. This meant that she could have a business selling milk. Now Shanti is able to live and work in her village and provide for her daughters, keeping them safe from being sold. They were also able to help Shanti provide for her daughters’ education, which will equip them for a future that is different from their mother’s.
“If She is Safe hadn’t come into my life, I would have gone abroad as a domestic worker again, and I don’t know whether I would have returned alive or not.”
– SHANTI
“I am happy now, because I can live at home with my daughters and earn an income to support our family.”
– SHANTI
Pictures from the 2023 Iowa Bike Ride Impacting She Is Safe:
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