On Thursday our appeal to raise £25,000 towards the building of a new school for Sramik Primary in Patan, Kathmandu, was launched. The campaign began with a presentation by Brian, our Trustee Chairman at the Millom Rotary Club in Cumbria. The presentation was entitled “From Haverigg to the Himalaya” and told the story of Brian's journey from growing up in Cumbria through to creating Nepal Schools Aid with his Nepali wife Champa.
The appeal is attempting to raise money to provide Sramik Primary School (twinned with St Jame's school in Millom) with a new school in place of the current community building where their existence is constantly under threat. Even if this weren't the case, for 150 children to go to school with no electricity, no running water and no toilet just isn't acceptable and having discovered the extent of their plight we have decided to step outside our normal role in being a providor of materials support to helping with new premises. So, we need to find creative ways of getting grants or large donations, pronto! Millom kicked us off with some personal donations and a promise to look at the possibility of Foundation Grants for us.
The appeal continues at Carlisle Rotary Club on Wednesday evening.
I came across an interesting article today about fees at private schools in Kathmandu on the Republica website with one paragraph from the article copied below. The school mentioned is a stones throw away from Bal Bigyan and Shramik schools, both of which are filled with children of the lowest castes or peasant farmers or migrant workers. The sums of money mentioned as fees below probably aren't even earned in a complete lifetime by any of these children's parents, and it just goes to demonstrate the complete inequality in Nepali society with one school not even getting government funding and another charging mega-fees.
"The British School at Sanepa, Lalitpur has divided students into key stages (Ks) and charges fees accordingly. It charges 125 pounds sterling as registration fee for all the stages. It further charges 1,575 pounds as capital development fee, 1,035 pounds as deposit and an annual tuition fee of 4,140 pounds, to be paid equally in four terms for Ks 1/2 (class 1-6). "
After many weeks of communication and negotiation we have agreed with ECCA in Kathmandu that 15 teachers from our five schools will be given the necessary one weeks training to deliver the new Water & Sanitation curriculum.
For quite some time we seemed to be confronted with the classic Nepali bureaucracy where everything takes double the time, nobody knows who is responsible for what, and costs escalate in proportion to time delays!
Then out of the blue arrives Ram Maharjan from ECCA who has corresponded promptly, run meetings to plead our cause, talked to ECCA and UN-HABITAT partners and directors to finally get this work agreed and at an acceptable price of $1000. This looks a lot from our small budget, but when you look at the fact that we are getting 5 days training for 15 teachers ........ not bad!
The real issue though is the impact this will have on the needy children in our schools. We all understand about clean drinking water and the importance of personal hygiene, but these people live and work where there is NO running water to drink, wash etc., so the issues are many and critical.
With ECCA help we will run this programme in May and hopefully through it's implementation will begin to improve the health of 700 small children and the communities in which they live.You can read more about the ECCA programme here
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.
Now taking a well earned break, Dave has headed off into the Annapurna Himal arranged by our friends at Sherpa Expeditions.
On Thursday our appeal to raise £25,000 towards the building of a new school for Sramik Primary in Patan, Kathmandu, was launched. The campaign began with a presentation by Brian, our Trustee Chairman at the Millom Rotary Club in Cumbria. The presentation was entitled “From Haverigg to the Himalaya” and told the story of Brian's journey from growing up in Cumbria through to creating Nepal Schools Aid with his Nepali wife Champa.
