Aayushma Rana: A mother helping another

Aayushma Rana was awarded the ‘Ratna Devi Covid Hero Award’ in 2021 by The Zonta Club in Kathmandu. Rana, who is a mother of two, worked tirelessly and selflessly to provide essential items and other necessary things like sanitary pads and such to those who needed them during the Covid-19 lockdowns, focusing mainly on new mothers and infants. 

She lost her husband during the second wave of Covid but that didn’t stop her from helping others. In fact, she felt she had to do even more after his death, to honor him and in some ways to forget the pain, albeit momentarily. 

Today, Rana who is 39, runs her own social organization the Maya Mamata Foundation. She also has an event management company, Aaravi Events. When she was a child, she looked up to Mother Teresa and would often tell her mother that she wished to be just like her when she grew up. Despite her father’s objections, she pursued her passion for social work and earned a degree in social work from St. Xavier’s College in Maitighar, Kathmandu. 

 Before establishing the Maya Mamata Foundation, she was a teacher. She had started working right after finishing high school. For a decade, she worked with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) where she assisted Bhutanese refugees and those affected by earthquakes.

 After working in humanitarian service for a long time, she always dreamed of starting her own NGO. She spent a part of her earnings to give food and other supplies to people. She started with a hundred people and then went on to help more on a regular basis. When the pandemic hit, she decided to start her own foundation so that she could help those who were suffering. 

 During the initial days, her organization functioned at random. She would come to the aid of those on the streets without a plan of action. The management was still finding its feet, she says. After she lost her husband, she became intent on helping women and children. “As a widow and a mother, I could feel their pain and wanted to do whatever I could to ease it a little,” she says. She even used the funeral fund to help others, proving that even in tough times, kindness finds a way.

 “I’m worried about widows, new moms, adolescent girls, and infants. I want to make sure they have proper sanitation and access to nutritious food,” says Rana. The name of her foundation ‘Maya Mamata’, translates to motherly love and care, and that is what Rana has been providing to women who have nowhere to turn to in times of need. 

 Even the profits she makes from hosting events under the banner of her event management company get funneled into the Maya Mamata Foundation. She is also focusing on the skill development of widowed women as well as teaching children. Apart from providing essentials to new mothers and infants, Rana also distributes clothes during winter. One of her favorite things to do is give socks to children. “It’s a small thing but it makes them so happy,” she says, adding children’s faces light up when she gives them these lovely, warm socks. 

The Maya Mamata Foundation is still in its nascent stage so, Rana confesses, they can’t organize big workshops. But she does plan to train as many women as possible and increase the number in the future. As of now, they haven’t collaborated with other organizations, choosing to stick with individual donors who want to help others but don’t know where to begin. 

“When I started, friends and family helped with small contributions and that is still largely the case,” she says. In recent times, the foundation sent relief materials for the victims of the Jajarkot earthquake. She is also teaming up with the Karma Yog Foundation to create makeshift schools. 

There is no denying that Rana is passionate about the work she does. She is always more than willing to lend a helping hand. Her family thinks of it as both her virtue and her vice. She confesses she can sometimes be consumed by it all. But her work adds value to her life, she says. It gives her a purpose. It redefines what she knows of love on so many different levels. 

“After being together for 19 years, I lost my partner. I don’t think I will ever be the same but doing what I love makes life bearable,” she says, adding she not only intends to be strong for her children but also inspire them to be the best versions of themselves. 

 Rana is on a mission to help women and infants by talking about it, acting on it, and doing whatever is possible to uplift them so that they can fend for themselves.  Understanding the challenges faced by some widowed mothers who choose prostitution for survival, she’s spreading awareness as well as trying to provide better alternatives and opportunities. Also, she’s making a difference in the lives of 30 children by providing for their education as well as giving them nutritious food. 

 The Maya Mamata Foundation, she says, is her third baby and she has many plans for it. Whether they will materialize remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure, Rana will continue helping people in whatever capacity she can. “It is what drives me and I can’t and won’t stop,” she says.