The
Nepal Schools Project
In
August 2001 I cried. I cried in
Nagarkot, Nepal, at the dilapidated state of the huts called schools. I cried at impoverished school children repeating words like
parrots, because they had no blackboard or chalk or pencils or paper.
And I cried at how one headmaster had saved for years to buy a buffalo,
and now wakes at 3am daily to sell the milk to pay for basic school items like a
teacher.
The tragic situations touched my heart. I felt my
heart well up, then swell up, and I swore then and there to help all the schools
in the area.
Nagarkot would be a beautiful area if it were
not for the poverty. Situated on a
Himalayan ridge, on one side it overlooks the Valley of Kathmandu. The cities lights twinkle in the distance at night.
On the other side are the highest Himalayan peaks, including Mount
Everest, always snow-capped.
But my time in Nagarkot was not spent in idle sightseeing. It was spent mobilising local support within the seven local ‘schools’, from the area’s nine village chiefs, and from the Villages’ Development Chief.
By the time I left, visits had been made to five
schools to ascertain needs. One
school had poor children crammed into small, filthy, crumbling classrooms
because new partially built classrooms had run out of funds.
They only need £500 to finish the work.
Another school had 200 students, but only
four pencils between them. This did
not really matter, as they could not afford paper to write on.
Two other schools were situated about halfway up a mountain so that children from villages in the valley far below, and the ridge way above, could all attend school. There were no real paths, only roughly hewn footsteps in steep mud or rock, with often a sheer drop on one side. The path is highly dangerous, especially when wet, and children on their way to school had slipped off the mountainside and died.
These tragic circumstances were enhanced because the schools had no games, no ball, and no skipping rope or coit, nothing except stones to play with. At one school, children played musical chairs, to a tune of the teacher’s humming. But the school had no chairs. So the teacher helped each bare-footed child stand on a cut-rough stone.
There are too many
terrible things to relate. Suffice
to say, seeing the schools and ascertaining needs was followed by discussions
with the area’s Villages Development Chief, Mr Bill Bahadur. He agreed to call a meeting with the Chief’s of all nine
local villages, with the objective of raising villager support for a planned
Schools Development Programme.
The meeting went well.
Through an interpreter, I explained my tears of sadness at their plight,
and promised to raise funds in England to rebuild and re-equip all seven
schools. In return for funds for the schools’ materials and
supplies, the Village Chiefs agreed to
1.
Provide labour (from their vast pool of unemployed tradesmen).
2.
Set up individual parent-teacher School Management Committees with one
committee over all (to ensure monies are well spent).
3.
Send girls to school (at present girls work hard on the mountain slopes
from a very young age).
As an initial agreement,
the outcome was successful. Before
leaving, from personal savings I bought enough basic play and school items such
as footballs, coits, skipping ropes, blackboards, chalks, exercise books,
pencils and rubbers for each child in each school.
Please
help. Each school needs about £10,000
to give children basics like a safe building, toilet and water facilities,
telephone for emergencies (much needed when accidents occur to children half-way
up a mountain), and books. Each pound buys perhaps 10 times more than in
England.
Please send donations payable to,
‘Nepal Schools Project’ to 5 Beach Houses, Royal Crescent, Margate, CT9 5AL
England, or phone 01843 230377.
Or
let us know if you would like to help with Fun-draising.
Let’s wipe away the tears from Nagarkot’s
visitors.
Thank
you so much for your help.
Dr Allan Sweeney