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!

Welcome to Hook Norton School

We are pleased to report that we have been joined by Hook Norton C of E Primary School in Oxfordshire. A meeting with Head Teacher, Stella Belgrove, confirmed their commitment to being our third supporting UK school and they are now planning their approach to include:
1. Year 2 children incorporating elements of Nepal Studies into their curriculum
2. Year 5 children incorporating Nepal into their focus on water availability around the world
3. The school adopting and twinning with Kesh Chandra school in the Itumbahal district of central Kathmandu
We will do all we can to support them in their work to educate some of Oxfordshire's children in the culture, history, geography and the needs of Nepal.

Their website: Click here

Bollywood comes to Haverigg!

Well, not exactly Bollywood but the music was from Slumdog Millionaire! The 30 min video of Sharon & Michael's wedding in Kathmandu went down a storm on the last day of term at Haverigg school with a great deal of interest from the children if their questions were anything to go by. "Why do they wear sarees, why do they wear red at a wedding in Nepal, what is the red scarf for, why did they walk around the temple three times, why was the bell ringing .........."

All good questions and it has prompted us to take our video camera on our next visit annd to film more everyday life in Kathmandu which can be arranged into small educational clips.

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.

St James School Off To A Flying Start

A visit to St James school, Millom, this week showed how committed they are to exploring Nepal as a country as part of their curriculum. Just before half term the Head Teacher Nerissa asked pupils to do a little homework with their parents to find out as much as they could about Nepal. On their return there was a massive amount of information that the children had arranged into documents, pictures and collages. Some had decided to display their findings as pictures of Everest, Gurkha soldiers, Buddhist and Hindu temples, where others has concentrated on factual information such as population, geographic position, current prime minister and .... one pupil finding out about the recent festival of Tihar. My visit to the school was real fun but a bit of a nightmare having to select the top three work examples to receive the prizes. Thankfully everyone who participated got something including merit certificates and some sweets!

St James School Joins Us

In recent weeks we have been helped by our first UK school at Haverigg to approach a number of others to potentially join with us in offering Nepal Studies in their curriculum. This has led to the St James school in Millom, south Cumbria to contact us and we have visited the school on three occasions now to meet with the head teacher, Nerissa, her staff and the school council.
Their enthusiasm was obvious in seeking to begin learning about Nepal and they are now planning their approach.
The picture above shows us with some of the school council who were dressed up on the day for some activities related to Book Week which was when we visited.

Haverigg School News

The Black Combe Challenge 8th July 2008The morning of 8th July began with rain and low cloud on the west Cumbrian coast. Oh dear, not good news for the 100 or so five to ten year olds attempting to summit the peak of Black Combe today at just under 2000ft from sea level. A few frantic phone calls later and an easing in the size of rain drops saw the first of numerous school buses disgorging hordes of children at Whicham Church. Most were dressed already in rainwear ranging from the classic dark green to the not so classic bright pink. All were carrying a rucksack or lunch box of varying size carrying food and drink of unknown nutritional value! Shortly, we were off, shuffling down the lane to our base camp, a single tent manned (or womanned!) by a couple of teachers doing sterling work to entertain those who couldn't make the attempt, counting them all out and .... making around two million jam butties for the end of the descent.

Probably around two hours later one large group was on the summit, celebrating their success under the Buddhist prayer flags with one big cheer and a lengthy tucking in to their "carefully chosen mountaineering nutrition packs"! (How do you get strips of cheese to look like chips, and how can you eat them with tomato sauce on them?) A second group emerged from the mist and we were almost complete for those who could manage it.
The descent was completed in good time with no "casualties" and thankfully the rain kept away for the duration. The jam butties were the best I've ever tasted, I met an old school mate from the 1950's half way up, we all had a good time and everyone probably had the best night's sleep in ages. What more could you want?