Nepal: Education AND healthcare a priority!

There are times when our own perception of the work we do in Nepal seems less than a drop in the ocean. The previous posting gives a flavour of the overall problems facing Nepal as a nation, and this is on top of the political and security issues resulting from a 10 year war with the Maoists, the removal of the monarchy and government via a 22 party coalition.
However it is when a “personal” situation arises that we question the focus and value of what we do. A recent email from Krishna Thapa, our sponsored teacher at Bal Kalyan school greatly disturbed us: In Krishna’s own words:
"One day last week, Year 1 pupil Deepa Koirala was carrying her nursery class little brother, Dilen, down a flight of stairs when she fell and broke her arm as well as dislocating her elbow. We immediately took her to the nearby Jana Maitri hospital where a doctor confirmed that an operation would be necessary. We could not meet the cost, and neither could Deepa’s parents. Deepa’s father earns 3000 NRs per month (£25!) from which they must pay their rent and purchase food. Next we wrote a letter to the government funded Bir Hospital in Kathmandu seeking help and thankfully they agreed to perform the operation for free. However the cost of medicines was 6000 NRs which we raised from teachers, students and Dr Madan (Nepal Schools Aid Ops Manager). Since then we have had printed 1000 copies of a letter pad in the name of Bal Kalyan Health Fund which we will sell to create a fund for such future emergencies.”

Makes you think, doesn’t it, especially when you realise that Bal Kalyan school is NOT in some remote Himalayan village but in the centre of Nepal’s capital city!

Drinking water for Sramik School

The photo is virtually self-explanatory, but not of the background to this delivery of 2 months worth of mineral water to Sramik School in Patan, Kathmandu. After St James school in Millom raised money to pay for a range of books to be provided to the school, around £50 remained. Thanks to the insistence of one little boy at St James with his question "do they have clean water", this money was allocated to buying as much as we could, and today ......... delivery!

Just goes to show how far a little money will go!

New teacher at Bal Kalyan

We are pleased to announce the sponsorship of a new teacher at Bal Kalyan school in the Balaju district of Kathmandu. krishna Thapa is our fourth sponsored teacher, and, thanks to a generous donation from one of our supporters we have sufficient funding for a teacher at this school for up to five years.
Krishna is a member of the local community who live mostly in a shanty town along the banks of the river Bagmati. He has "fought" his way out to get a diploma in civil engineering, a B.A., and is currently studying in the early hours of the morning before school for an M.A. English.

Sramik Links With St James School

Our aborted trip to Nepal recently still gave us a chance to deliver a package of letters and cards to Sramik School and they have already responded to St James via the internet with a scanned selection of children's drawings. 

Hopefully this will promote regular contact between specific children as well as large parcels on an occasional basis.

 

"Water" Training Ends

Reports from Kathmandu indicate a highly successful programme for all participants. Key points apart from the obvious content learning appear to have been the application methodologies learned and the motivation from a human values based approach. Teachers have now returned to their schools to begin implementation and we will report on this in a few weeks.

Water & Sanitation Programme Launched in Kathmandu

Today is a big day for us in Kathmandu, the launch of the five day training programme "Water & Sanitation in the School Curriculum" for 12 teachers from our 5 schools. The programme is being run by our partners in this venture, ECCA, a long standing and respected NGO in Nepal.

Across the week these 12 teachers will learn how to enable values based education for their pupils in the issues of clean water, hygiene, sanitation etc to be added to the general curriculum. This addition to the school curriculum was piloted in Kathmandu for 10 selected schools at the end of 2008 and we have been "agitating" to get this applied early across our own supported schools well ahead of it being nationally launched.
Now, thanks to two of our supporters, Dave Moss in the US and Mark Townsend in the UK, their generous donations have made this a reality and we are extremely grateful for their direct funding of the programme.
The programme naturally focuses on the specific content of "water, hygiene, sanitation" but just as important is the professional education our teachers will receive in the five teaching methodologies of "silent sitting; painting, art & craft; role play; music & singing; story telling." In addition there are inputs regarding the wider context including a session from a member of the Education Ministry on the national curriculum, and further sessions on the role of the community and integration into the existing curriculum.
Further updates as the week progresses.

Nepal Visits

Across most of May a number of Trustees will be visiting and working at our schools in Kathmandu and THIS is the place to keep up to date. Keep checking the NewsBlog as we will be posting up news every other day or so and "events" will include:

• Sharon's wedding
• Selecting a new teacher for Bal Kalyan school
• Opening and running the new "Water & Sanitation in the Curriculum" course for 12 of the teachers in our schools
• Meeting with the Heads and Governors of each school
• Conducting a detailed fact-find on two schools
  
• Observing some specific lessons in each school
• Distributing letters and cards from the children of Haverigg and St Jame's schools
• Allocating our budget for the production and purchase of 22,000 exercise books, 1000 textbooks, 100 school bags

We would really welcome visitors to the NewsBlog leavingtheir comments against/under each posting so, especially for our supporters, please click on "comments" and use the "anonymous" login but PLEASE remember to sign your name at the bottom of your message!

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.

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.

Some of our teachers

Shramik School, Patan

Bal Bigyan School, Patan

Exam Time

It's exam time in Kathmandu with those at Government schools taking place between December 14th and December 22nd. A testing time for any student wherever you are in the world.

This picture of one of the students at Sramik School in Patan seems to highlight the emotions associated with such a time.

You can also see the environment of the classroom with bare brick walls, concrete floor and rough wood desks.

Three Artists!

Last week we highlighted some sketches received from some of the students at Sramik school in Patan, Kathmandu. We've now just received a photo of the three artists themselves ...... so here they are.

A child's sketch from Kathmandu

Nepal Schools Review

Across most of November first Champa and then Andy made their first visits back to Kathmandu since we began our work as Nepal Schools Aid. Their attendance at all five of our schools as well as meetings and interactions with the staff and pupils at the schools have given us a broad insight into the situation and needs of them all. The full committee of five trustees will be reviewing the information at our year end meeting in mid December but it seems useful to summarise the main points here for our many supporters who show an active interest in what is happening in Nepal itself. This short write up can not give the full picture however, merely a representation of the overal position:

1. Premises & Infrastructure

Only three of our supported schools have their own buildings giving them that natural sense of security. The remaining two, Sramik and Kesh Chandra are in community or semi-religious buildings which can neither be developed nor permanently guaranteed. All five schools though have extremely cramped classrooms often separated by nothing more than a sheet of plywood. There is little natural light and a sense of "gloomy darkness" in each school. None have any playground areas and only one has any modern technology in the form of some computers. But failing electricity supply has rendered them useless! One, Kesh Chandra doesn't even have a toilet.

2. Staff

All the teachers are dedicated and enthusiastic, they would have to be working under such extreme conditions! Mostly they are poor English speakers. All are on "the minimum wage". Their teaching approach and methodology seemed very good. Their appointments are always by a government ministry, never following interviews by the Head Teacher which is the ultimate in a power crazed and corrupt society.

3. Our grant aided teachers

All three are English speakers but definitely need to improve if they are to market themselves as fluent. They all teach English and Maths and are qualified with teaching qualifications and degrees. The two males, Bashu and Rajendra are 23 years old and the female Malika is 27. We have discovered that but for our salary support two of them would have left the country to find work.

4. In summary

It would seem that we are making a real difference in that we have saved two teachers from going abroad, the number of pupils across these schools has risen by 140 and the "conversion" rate has also increased. In all cases the heads have said that their survival without our material support would be impossible

 

Schools News

Third Teacher Appointed

We are pleased to report that we have now assisted in selecting a new teacher for the Shree Sramik school. Rajendra Maharjan is the third teacher in our salary support programme and he joins Basu Maharjan and Malika Shakya at Bal Bigyan and Kesh Chandra schools respectively.
It's amazing to think that these teachers at primary schools are only paid a salary of £42 per month, so donations totalling £500 pays a teacher for a year! Rest assured that this is the government approved salary so we are maintaining equilibrium in the local economy by meeting the norm.
You can help us to maintain these three teachers in their jobs by making a donation of ANY size using the big yellow button. Do it now!

Schools News

11th June 2008
Communication, textbooks and a teacher

In the last few days we have had a number of emails from our five schools in Kathmandu. No big deal you might think, but this is not a country with easy internet access or where very many people have a computer. In fact it seems that a few of the head teachers have gone to a relative or a friend with a computer, set up an email account, then started to check for emails every few days or so. Very commendable, let's hope they check regularly enough to keep in good contact with us and to set up communication with Haverigg School in Cumbria UK.

One of the schools, Shree Sramik Primary School has hinted at the possibility of our helping them with an extra teacher who can teach English. They are based in Patan, adjoining Kathmandu, and are possibly our poorest school. We are very favourable towards this, especially so since Haverigg School are considering adopting/twinning with them. We are awaiting a response from our Operations team in Kathmandu before we proceed.

It seems that there is still a shortage of textbooks in Kathmandu with the single (?) supplier blaming the April elections for utilising all its resources for printing ballot papers which put it's textbook printing behind schedule! Now some two months later, many schools are still without books for a new school year which began in April.