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Nasreen Sheikh: World Entrepreneur
by Phyllis A. Harmon, DTM
I was introduced to Nasreen Sheikh by fellow Toastmaster, Steve Davis. I was intrigued
by her story, mission, and purpose in the world. Below are the results of our meeting.
Tell us about you. Where were you born, how visited her husband’s house for the first time,
big was your family. Did you have siblings, older, she didn’t like him because he would drink and
younger? he would sometimes mistreat her. One time
she ran out from her husband’s house to our
I don’t know my real birthday. My school mother’s house. My mother returned her to the
teacher gave me the birthday of November husband’s house the same day and said, “This
11th, 1991. I was born in a small village near the is your fate. If you die you have to die in your
India/Nepal border. I have three sisters and husband’s house.” I still feel that she wanted to
one brother. I was a middle child. I have many escape this marriage but no one was there to help
her. I saw her face, scared and still forced into
cousins – I am from a very large family. My a life with a man of whom she was very fright-
village was a completely male-dominated society. ened. She lost her confidence to talk about it and
The boys were allowed to go to school and girls started to believe that this was her world. I asked
stayed at home to clean, do laundry, and cook. mother that day: “Yasmin (my older sister) didn’t
It is a village where boys ate first while the girls want to get married. Why did you marry her?
got what was left over. It was a village where Now she needs help and you are saying it’s her
a girl’s 15th or 16th birthday marked the day destiny?” She told me, “That is what our culture
when she was arranged or forced into marriage. is. It happened to me, to your sister, and it will
This is a village where men made most of the happen to you.”
decisions for women. I have seen women being
very oppressed and committing suicide. It was That’s when I knew I had to run. I began
a really remote village where there weren’t any searching for outside help. I went to Kathmandu,
relief organizations or social media to publicize where my cousin’s brother worked for a large
the story of where I born. factory. He negotiated with my family and I
was allowed to work. After a few months I had
What defining moments started you on your life’s learned to make handicrafts with my cousin’s
work? brother, supporting myself and sending some
money to my family. There I was, just 12 years
I was around 6 or 7 years old and the hardest old, working for a massive export company –
thing in my life was seeing my own older sister what I now know was a sweatshop.
forced into marriage. My sister wanted to study.
Instead, my grandpa and my parents arranged How does the culture of your home country differ
her marriage when she was just 12 years old.
When she turned 16 she was married. When she from what you’ve seen in the world?
I feel everywhere humanity is struggling.
It’s not a question of rich and poor, and it’s not
a question about different countries - we are all
suffering in our own way. In other parts of the
world, people have money, cars, and houses.
Yet they are still suffering and feeling miser-
able because they don’t have spiritual or family
connections and work too much.
We humans are not happy - we all are strug-
gling; trying to discover how we can bring that
long lasting peace and love that exists into our
lives. Can we make it happen? I feel we can once
we start to believe in ourselves and a unity of
community where no one is judged by their
status, color caste, religion, etc., when everyone
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