Namaste! Happy Nepali New Year 2068 & Spring Greetings from New York!
Spring is my favorite time of the year, with flowers blooming and winter snows a distant memory – it’s the time for renewal and new possibilities. Here at Adhikaar, we are excited about new beginnings and new possibilities. Last weekend, some of our members took the stage for the first time in their lives! Some of them had never even seen a play, let alone act in it – it was an incredible journey that culminated into a beautiful performance at the Rubin Museum of Art.
This year, we have two new campaigns under way for the rights and dignity of caregivers and nail salon workers. We are joining the Caring Across Generation Campaign, led by the National Domestic Workers Alliance and Jobs with Justice. Adhikaar is also leading a campaign for the Health, Safety, and Dignity of nail salon workers. We continue to raise awareness about the New York State Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, which became law in 2010, inspiring our domestic worker sisters across the country to fight for their rights. This summer, our Senior Community Organizer Narbada Chhetri and I will be in Geneva to advocate for the International Convention on Domestic Workers. We are creating history!
Speaking of new things, we also have a new website: www.adhikaar.org – Please visit our new online home, and join our online community: www.facebook.com/adhikaar.
Your support makes Adhikaar’s work possible. Please join us on June 2 for a fundraiser reception to help Adhikaar continue to strengthen our communities, and be at the forefront of the social justice movement.
Sincerely,
Luna Ranjit
Executive Director – Adhikaar
Adhikaar members shine onstage in a collaborative theater festival
Almost all of the Nepali cast in “Journey to the Ocean:Yatra Samudra Samma” made their onstage debut on April 30th at the Rubin Museum alongside seasoned actors in a piece developed in collaboration with Foundry Theater, writer/director Aya Ogawa and designer Jeanette Yew. Together, they imagined the future in a bilingual performance so powerful and moving that it brought dozens to tears. The audience was welcomed to an invented festival where past stories of injustice and violence reached their imagined resolutions. In the process, people witnessed the empowerment of the central character Bindu Lama, whose journey into indentured servitude in America was the basis for the story, but also the actors and community as a whole through storytelling.
