Finding Their Way
By By Déodonné Bhattarai, Communications Specialist, Disability Rights Center-NH
Tabla player Prem Sagar and singer Hari Maya Khatiwada are renowned musicians. They met in Varanasi, India when both were attending graduate school. Even as students, they were well known and performed extensively throughout India and in their home country of Nepal. After graduating, their musical careers continued to soar. Working around their concert schedules,
they taught in the Music Department at Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan University.
In 2011, the couple obtained visas through the Diversity Immigrant Visa lottery
program and, with their five-year-old daughter, moved to the United States.
After landing in Baltimore they made their way to Texas where they performed at a festival in
“Before starting Leadership my automatic thought regarding anything was – I can’t do it. Now I no longer have that feeling and my first thought is usually – How can I do it? – because I know I probably can.”
Tabla player Prem Sagar and singer Hari Maya Khatiwada are renowned musicians. They met in Varanasi, India when both were attending graduate school. Even as students, they were well known and performed extensively throughout India and in their home country of Nepal. After graduating, their musical careers continued to soar. Working around their concert schedules, they taught in the Music Department at Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan University.
In 2011, the couple obtained visas through the Diversity Immigrant Visa lottery program and, with their five-year-old daughter, moved to the United States. After landing in Baltimore they made their way to Texas where they performed at a festival in Houston. When they were in Houston the Khatiwada’swere enticed with promises of free room and board if they would come to work outside of Boston. The family relocated and were given a place to live. However, the time they spent working was considered “training” and for months they were not paid.
It was an awful and isolating time for the family. “We were always scared,” recalled Hari Maya. Their situation was compounded by the arrival of their son, who was born nearly four months premature and weighed just over 1.5 pounds. The hospital where
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THANK YOU MIZ JULIA!
It is with profound sense of gratitude that we dedicate this issue to Julia Freeman-Woolpert. After more than three decades of service and advocacy on behalf of individuals with disabilities and their families, Julia is retiring as Outreach Advocacy Director for DRC-NH. Among her many responsibilities, Julia has played a pivotal role in the planning and production of the NH RAP Sheet. She has been the author for many of the personal stories that put a human face on the issues confronting people with disabilities. We are incredibly grateful for her insight and compassion.
While Julia will no longer be keeping office hours, her commitment to social justice is unwavering and her ties to New Hampshire’s disability and immigrant communities are unbreakable. Whenever there’s a need for advocacy, you can bet she will be there. We wish her an amazing next chapter.
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DRC-NH, in collaboration with the UNH Institute on Disability and the New Hampshire Council on Developmental Disabilities, distribute a quarterly RAP sheet to educate community members and policy makers about the latest research, policy, practice, and advocacy issues affecting individuals with disabilities and their families.
