Education for women

Ever since RAJA was founded in the 1950s, the company has been committed to women’s rights. In 2006, RAJA established its own foundation, the RAJA-Danièle Marcovici Foundation. Through the foundation, RAJA works to support women’s projects around the world.

One of the four areas RAJA Foundation works with, is to support education for women. Here in Norway we have chosen to enter into a collaboration with Vibeke Sefland and her organisation Mountain Vibs, to contribute to this. Through this collaboration RAJA supports a school for girls in Nepal.

Vibeke Sefland is one of the world’s best female mountain climbers. When she was on an expedition to Mount Everest in 2015, Nepal was hit by an earthquake that left villages in ruins. She chose to stay and help rebuild the country. Since then, Vibeke has established a number of aid projects in Nepal, including an orphanage, a factory for the disabled, training for midwives and several schools.

Vibeke Sefland has lived for long periods in Nepal and made an untiring effort after the country was hit by earthquakes

For her efforts, Vibeke was honoured as one of the finalists in the 2020 Bravest Woman of the Year award by Tara magazine. You can read about Vibeke in Tara here.

The school in Nepal

Through its partnership with Mountain Vibs, RAJA has sponsored a school for girls in Kathmandu. The school has 250 students, and until recently, girls could not attend school when they were menstruating. This is because parts of the country practice the ancient custom of “Chhaupadi”, a tradition that prohibits women and girls from engaging in normal, daily activities while menstruating, as they are considered “impure”. Instead, girls must be isolated and live in tents or outbuildings as long as they are menstruating.

At this school, the girls have now been trained in what menstruation is, and the taboo has been removed. All the girls at the school have been issued with a set of reusable sanitary towels. These enable the girls to go to school every day. In this way, Vibeke Sefland and her supporters have ensured that the girls at the school no longer have to practice the old custom, and can get an education. It’s about empowerment – giving women the strength to help themselves.