I am pleased to report that one of our Mountain Fund volunteers has recently completed training at the Global Giving office in Washington D.C. in how to support Nepali NGO's for using Global Giving. She will be in Nepal starting next month and we've set up a small office/training room there in our volunteer house where we will be able to work one-on-one with local NGO's who want to access Global Giving. We're very excited to be starting this work in Nepal and can't thank the staff at Global Giving enough for their support.
In additon to getting support on the use of Global Giving as a platform to tell their stories, we'll have computers located in our office with Rosetta Stone software installed so NGO's can work on improving their English at the same time they are learning about Global Giving.
Thanks to a very generous donor and and organization called Global Public Health we've been able to obtain a portable ultrasound for our midwife who is working at the birthing center in Thambuchet, Rasuwa District. Our midwife will be trained in the use of the ultrasound by Dr. Shrestha at Helping Hands Hospital in Kathmandu. This is a very portable unit which will allow our midwife to take it with her from village to village. Our current birthing center serves five primary villages, Goljung, Gatlang, Chilime, Tatopani and Thuman with a few smaller villages along the way. From our base in Thambuchet it can take all day walking to reach any one of these villages. The machine will enable us to detect any complications early on and arrange for the pregnant woman to get to a regional hospital in Dunche or to Kathmandu for delivery. Our rural birthing center is equipped for normal deliveries only so difficult cases need to be handled in a full hospital setting and detecting them early is really necessary given the difficulties of transportation in and out of the district..
We still need another midwife in Thambuchet. At present we have one midwife and the villages served have a population of over 7,000 with a fertility rate of 3.2. The workload for one person, particularly given the distance she must travel from village to village is overwhelming. I am adding a photo of our midwife Shwoita Lama, she's so dedicated to her work and real trooper.
I am happy to report we've secured a location for this project. We found a perfect site in the Dhading District about 35km from Kathmandu. The road is paved except for the last 5km which is gravel. I added a Wikipedia link that will help you to located the Dhading District and learn at least a little about the district as well.
The site is 9 ropani of land with a small house and a couple of outbuildings. It's flat and level land with water and is current being used for farming. Dhading is a productive farming district with approximately 80% of the land being used for farming.
The site will enable the women in this program to grow a variety of vegetables, potatoes and rice. It's suitable as well for keeping some livestock such as goats, chicken or water buffalo. Not many keep cows in Nepal and depend instead on the water buffalo for milk and as their "tractor" for plowing fields. I'll attach a photo of a farmer in Nepal using buffalo and a wooden plow, as is the custom there.
Hope to have photos of the farm soon. We've also received two applications already from women who want to live there with their children and work the farm, so things are moving quickly.
Thanks for your support.
Links:
