Dave Moss bags all five schools

Dave Moss, our first US supporter, breezed into Kathmandu a couple of days ago and immediately began his whirlwind tour of all our five schools. Personally guided by Dr Madan our head of Nepal Operations Dave visited Kesh Chandra, Shramik and Bal Bigyan on his first day, then Himalaya and Bal Kalyan on his second. Using part of his sponsored donations Dave had purchased 100 of our Nepal Schools Aid school bags and took time to present these at each school.

Dave's remaining $500 donation will be used to fund the training of 10-15 teachers in the new Water & Sanitation curriculum probably during April/May.
Now taking a well earned break, Dave has headed off into the Annapurna Himal arranged by our friends at Sherpa Expeditions.

Shivaratri at Pashputinath

Hindus across the country are observing Maha Shivaratri on Monday. Devotees have thronged the temples of Lord Shiva, the god of destruction and salvation, and are performing pooja to appease him today. Some of them observe fasting also. The government has declared a public holiday to mark this day today.

Falgun Krishna Chaturdashi—the 14 day of the waning moon in the month of Falgun on which this festival is celebrated— is one of the most sacred days mentioned in the Hindu scriptures.

According to legends, Shiva was born this night, and the day is marked reverently as the 'great night of Shiva'.

It is also believed that the almighty comes down to the earth to grant blessings to his devotees tonight. In the Pashputinath Temple, one of the holiest Hindu shrines in the world, in Kathmandu, thousands of devotees from different parts of Nepal, India and other South Asian countries have gathered. Hundreds of devotees are queuing up in the temple premises to perform pooja (religious ceremony) from the early morning.

Every year, hundreds of sadhus, who practise nudism, come to Pashupatinath from different parts of India on the occasion of the Maha Shivaratri festival.

If only we had a toilet!

The following report is just starting to appear in the Asian press and obviously has a direct bearing on our work. One of our schools, Kesh Chandra, has no toilet at all and the other four have "holes" which are completely inadequate.

KATHMANDU, Feb. 17
"Lack of proper and safe toilets in school premises is one of the reasons for Nepali girl students' dropping out before reaching the secondary level education, local newspaper The Rising Nepal reported Tuesday.
According to surveys on water and sanitation (WATSAN) carried out by government and private organizations and UN HABITAT Water for Asian Cities Program Nepal, 59 percent of public and community schools across the country do not have any toilet, contributing to the increasing rate of girl dropouts per year.
The rate of girl dropouts has increased by 6 percent in the span on seven years. The dropout rate in 2001 was 6.5 percent while it rose to 12.5 in 2007, a government report showed."

You can read the full report here

India hits Dave !!!!

No, I haven't got the headline wrong way around! Dave Moss is one of (our only in fact) supporter from the US and is currently en route to Kathmandu for a couple of weeks.
Dave contacted us several months ago asking to visit some of our schools during his travels and to raise a few bucks for us. In fact, he's done a bit more than that, having raised $800 so far from his family and friends back home. Here's part of an email received from him today:

"I made it to India a few mornings ago and I haven't been the same since! Delhi is a very interesting place and I'm still trying to process everything. The fact that most people speak English makes things pretty easy (but also makes me complacent in learning any Hindi so far). I've been getting around mostly by auto rickshaw which is pretty fun and have seen a bunch of forts and temples (tombs) around the city in huge parks."

Dave will be in Kathmandu from 25th February and is using his $US to fund two things. First he has "bought" around $300 worth of school bags/rucksacks to be distributed personally around our 5 schools. Second, the remaining $500 or so will be banked to potentially be used to fund the training of up to 10 teachers at our schools in adding a programme of Water & Sanitation education to the schools curriculum. This was described on this blog yesterday so you can read further details below. As you will read we are uncertain of the costs involved yet, but we are confident that Dave's generous help will go a long way towards making it happen.
Lastly, a piece of unashamed marketing, if anyone else out there would like to visit Nepal, please consider contacting us via our website and maybe we can help each other!
"Meanwhile Dave, keep taking the tablets, you ain't seen nothing yet!"

UK Studies in the Kathmandu curriculum?

For 12 months now the children of Haverigg Junior School in Cumbria have had Nepal Studies as part of their standard curriculum. This was a creative and forward thinking decision by the Haverigg teachers, and they have now been joined by St James' Junior School at Millom, a mile or so away.

Each of these schools has twinned with another school in Kathmandu and have started the usual exchange of letters, emails, cards and photos which is not easy in a technologically underdeveloped city like Kathmandu.

We are now attempting the next logical, but ambitious step. This is to assist each of our five schools in Kathmandu to introduce UK Studies into THEIR curriculum and the first planning template has now been created by the Cumbria schools teachers. More work will be necessary before the Kathmandu teachers will be in a position to introduce UK Studies to their pupils, but their enthusiasm coupled with the knowledge and skill of the UK teachers will ensure that this is a successfully implemented project in 2009.

Water & Sanitation in the schools curriculum

"The Ministry of Health, UN-HABITAT Water for Asian Cities Programme and Environment Conservation Camp (ECCA) have selected 10 schools of the Kathmandu Valley for piloting the Human Value-Based Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Education (HVWSHE) programme. Based on the outcome of the pilot testing, the government will gradually adopt the education in the school curriculum."

The importance of this announcement cannot be underestimated, and since it was made in late December 2008 we have been communicating with the UN-HABITAT office in Kathmandu to try and get our five schools included in the pilot programme.
However, they have refused on the basis of budget and costs of implementation in the five extra schools. So, we asked them to provide us with a cost projection and breakdown to train 2 teachers in each of our schools and to provide them with the appropriate materials. Once we know this we can consider whether we have the funds to provide this addition to the curriculum ourselves without waiting for the Nepalese Government to act.
Unfortunately we have NOT been replied to with these costs. (Wheels move very slowly in Nepal). However through our team and contacts we have the UN Director in Kathmandu who is chasing on our behalf.
We hope in the near future to be able to arrange funding for this work so that all the children in our five schools can receive some basic education in the importance of clean water and sanitation principles.

Some of our teachers

Shramik School, Patan

Bal Bigyan School, Patan

New Corporate Patron

We are pleased to announce that Enterprise Learning have joined us as a Corporate Patron and will be underwriting our Value Added programme for the next 5 years. Enterprise Learning is a specialist consultancy providing training and change services to regulated financial services clients helping them implement long term change and improve performance.
We have known their owners, Gary & Julia Storer since the early 1990's when Gary and Brian worked together at L&G and since then have often worked together combining their own companies on joint consulting projects.
"The guaranteed financial support to our Value Added programme for the next 5 years is not only an emotional relief to the UK team and a blessing to the children in our schools in Kathmandu, but a strong message about enduring personal friendships even in difficult economic times" (BM)