Child Nepal New Zealand

It’s official Child Nepal New Zealand, (Child Nepal NZ / CNNZ) has become a registered charity here in New Zealand.

Over the past few months, Emily and I have been working behind the scenes to ensure that all the necessary paperwork was lodged with Charities Services.

We can now begin operations and start raising funds to help support, resource, and fund initiatives in collaboration with Child Nepal.

Check out the website and initial post that Emily published yesterday 🙂

Namaste

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Super proud daddy moment…

Super proud daddy moment…

This beautiful young lady returns home today after spending nearly five weeks away in Nepal.

No doubt it has been a life changing moment and one that will live long in her memories, inspiring her God-given passions going well in to the future.

Nepal left an indelible mark on my heart and will undoubtedly leave one on hers.

I look forward to hearing of her exploits and the plans that she’ll have to further her connection with her Nepalese family and friends.

She has thoroughly enjoyed her time as a volunteer teacher at Gokarneshwor Light Academy and taking in some of the sights of Kathmandu.

She has developed a desire to assist in the resourcing and supporting of schools in Nepal and has committed to being an advocate / ambassador for Child Nepal here in New Zealand.

Child Nepal (CN) is a non-political, non-religion, non-government organisation (NGO) working on child rights in general, child protection and development in particular. It was established in 2003 by a group of social activists with an aim to initiate a child friendly culture in Nepal.

Their objectives are to:

• Ensure child friendly environment in families, schools, communities and at government levels.
• Strengthen civil society monitoring and constructive engagement to fulfill state accountability on rights of the child.
• Demonstrate effective mechanism to realize rights of the child on protection, development and participation.
• Open successful dialogue in mainstreaming effective strategy demonstrated by Child Nepal.

At times it hasn’t been easy but these experiences have stretched and matured her in ways that could only have happened if she immersed herself in the day-to-day lives of those in Nepal, soaking in its culture and all it has to offer.

 

Although teaching may not be something that she pursues in the future, it is certainly something that she has come to appreciate.

And she would encourage anyone looking to complete a mission trip or any kind of voluntary service to act upon it.

A special thanks and appreciation to Mohan Dangal and Sujeeta Aryal for taking her into your family and treating her as one of your own.

Your loving kindness is greatly appreciated and we are truly thankful and forever grateful.

Dhan’yavāda

Watch this space as ideas are birthed into action and dreams are realised 🙂

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Nepal Revisited – Day 27

This morning was an early start again as we needed to be at the airport by 6:00am.

Mohan Dangal from Child Nepal met us there, so that we could do a couple of official handovers of two Temporary Learning Centres (TLCs) to schools in Listikot & Ghumthang, in the Sindhupalchok District.

It also gave Heather, Richard and I an opportunity to see firsthand the work that Child Nepal had done with the local communities to get the schools up and functioning as soon as practical after the earthquake devastated the schools.

At each school Mohan had organised a formal programme, as we had Mr. Rudra Hari Bhandari from the District Education Office also along for the ride. This was so that he could see what was being done by local NGO’s and International Organisations within Nepal to help those most affected by the earthquake.

The first school we visited was Shree Ugrachandi Secondary School in Listikot. As can be seen from the photo the main school building has been badly damaged by the earthquake and hangs precariously on the edge of the hill.

Many of the local villagers turned out to thank us for the funding that we had provided to construct the TLC and showed their appreciation by giving us heaps of Khada’s and garlands of flowers.

The views of the surrounding hills and valleys were spectacular and show how remote the schools we have been assisting along with our partner agencies are. This trip was originally scheduled to take approximately 5 days by foot, due to landslides in the area and the wash out of the bridge and main road in and out of the area.

After the official programme which also incorporated speeches from the District Education Officer, Principal, Heather and Mohan we headed across the valley to Shree Balkalyan Lower Secondary School in Ghumthang.

Again we were overwhelmed by the show of appreciation from the local villagers receiving more than 20 Khada’s each and being welcomed by a high pitched trumpet sound as a local villager blew a traditional Narsingha.

It almost seemed like every child at the school greeted us with either a Khada or garland of flowers and we were presented with so many that both Heather & I had to leave quite a few behind on the table.

During the formalities we got to hear the Nepali National Anthem and a traditional song performed by some of the students which was quite moving.

At both schools we also presented a sample of school bags and stationery items which was greatly received with much applause by those gathered.

However, the young boy that I gave a bag to seemed to be a bit timid of me 😦

The remainder of the bags and stationery will be delivered to the school by Child Nepal once the roads are open.

After the formalities were over we headed back to Kathmandu and had lunch with Mohan – Before heading to a meeting with Bhupi @ Volunteers Initiative Nepal (VIN) to discuss the progress to date with their Sanitation Project. It also gave us the opportunity to introduce Richard to the team and discuss another part of a project that needs to be completed as soon as possible. We also got to discuss where the remaining quilts that we have in stock could go.

All in all today was a full on day and a huge encouragement to see the work that is being accomplished in Nepal even with all the frustrations and hold-ups due to the ongoing fuel shortage.

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Nepal Revisited – Day 8

This morning MJ headed to the Shelter Cluster while Heather & I went in to the Mission Aviation Fellowship (M.A.F.) booking office to organise flights for Runchet. The subsidized prices at the moment for flights, due to the fuel situation, works out cheaper for us to fly by helicopter rather than hire a driver for a few days and pay for fuel. It also reduces the number of days spent out of the office at the moment.

After this we went out for a spot of shopping as we are running out of a few essentials, including water. The water supply at the house (tank water) had taken a day and a half to organise. Thankfully by yesterday afternoon this had been sorted. Sanga (the local C.O.) had had to organise a second firm to deliver some water, as the first company would have taken at least a week to deliver some to us due to limitations on fuel.

In the afternoon Heather got confirmation that we will be flying to the Upper Gorkha region tomorrow, as Mountain Child have been able to schedule a flight up there and fit us in for a monitoring visit. Which is awesome!

We also headed across the other side of Kathmandu to meet up with Child Nepal, as their was a complication with the cheque that we had given them yesterday at the bank. We were introduced to the whole team and given tea which was very sweet and refreshing.

While we were there they showed us a sample of the bag and exercise book that they have had made, which is to be presented to each child at the Temporary Learning Centres (TLC’s) in Sindhupalchok. Also to be included are some other stationary supplies, such as pencils, pens etc. We suggested that rather than giving us the sample now, that it would be much better to do a presentation @ one of the TLC’s when we visit in November, which they agreed.

Sumita, Mohan and Heather discussing the next steps

We also spent some time getting introduced to the rest of the team that works at Child Nepal.

They are a small dedicated, friendly and committed team working in a rather confined space with limited office essentials such as workstations, office chairs etc.

Which shows that the majority of funding that they do get, goes directly to the resources for the children that they cater for.

As we were leaving we got drenched as the heavens opened, not only rain mind you, hail as well! But it was fascinating that within five kilometers of where we were, it was clear skies above and it looked like not a single drop of rain had fallen. By the time we got back to the house the temperature had risen by at least 10 degrees I reckon.

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Nepal Revisited – Day 7

We had a very productive day today as Heather & I started the morning off by having a meeting at Mission Aviation Fellowship (M.A.F.) to re-register our credentials with them, while MJ headed to the Logistics Cluster.

We were each amazed by the amount of motorbikes and cars that lined the road waiting for fuel and also the number of vehicles to-ing and fro-ing on the streets.

The traffic is the busiest it has been for days!!!

Heather & I then headed up stairs to have a meeting with Sarah @ Mountain Child, who has been doing work in the Upper Gorkha District, which is a very remote area of Nepal. They have been an implementing partner in the area of distributions to communities and Temporary Learning Centers (TLC’s) at the schools which have been severely affected by the earthquake. While we were out of the country they had tried to organise a monitoring visit. Now that we are back they will look at rescheduling one at the earliest convenience.

Obviously, with the transitioning from initial earthquake assistance through to recovery, the needs have been constantly changing for the communities, especially in isolated areas such as these. So if we do get the chance to head up there, we will do a pseudo evaluation and provide recommendations to head office so that we can continue working in the area.

We also had a meeting with Child Nepal (another implementing partner) at Sisters to discuss progress to date with the TLC’s that they have been working on. There assistance has been hampered by the landslides in the higher regions of Sindhupalchok, caused by the monsoon season. Also the current fuel crisis has had an affect on their progress. However, they have completed four centers and are looking forward to our monitoring visit in early November.

The latter part of the afternoon was spent catching each other up on where things are at with the different projects and us sharing information that we had each gathered today.

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