Buy Chickens for street children in Nepal

After all the festivals, the boys have gone back to school but they will have another few days off soon. They are going on a trip to Pokhara and everyone is very excited. Our wonderful returning volunteer, Paola, has raised some funds for that and is taking them now for the dream trip. Our other volunteer and our previous home manager who runs our non profit cafe in Kathmandu now, will also be joining them so it will be a lovely reunion and I am sure a lot of fun for everyone. 

In the meantime, we had some children that we needed to assist quickly as part of our Day Care Centre/Child Helpline project in the centre of Birgunj. We rescued 4 very young children (6-7 years old) from working at a hotel and linked them back with their families with the assistance of the authorities. Since the children were from India, we liaised with another organisation across the border and children's authorities there to ensure that the children will not be sent back to work and that they attend school. 

Another sad story we have encountered is a case of two children (7-8 years old) that the mum trained at begging and forced them to throw themselves in front of cars and rikshas to get money from passengers. They were being trained not to let go off the vehicles until somebody gives them some money. For those that have not been to Nepal - Birgunj city centre where we met them, is really really busy with cars, rikshas, motorbikes coming from of all directions so it is very dangerous for anyone crossing the roads. Together with the police we liaised with the mum and are trying to help her with finding a job and assisting the children at our Day Care Centre. 

And on a positive note, our new eggs laying chickens will be arriving from Chitwan shortly! We will post photos in the next report.

Thank you so much for all your support. And please keep an eye out on our social media - we will be launching our winter campaign soon! Without your continuous support we would never be able to help all the children that we have helped so far and are hoping to help in the future. 

With the help of our fantastic volunteers, staff and boys, we have now pretty much completed a long overdue 'chicken project'. It all happened in stages, and as in many cases in Nepal, many delayed stages... first, we laid the foundations for the sturdy walls that would hold the fence, then we built a large bamboo house and a smaller hut got fixed as well. So we're ready to get some happy and lucky chickens that can run around as much as they want to and hopefully they will lay a lot of tasty eggs very soon for the boys.

Recently our spending on vegetables decreased a lot as we have been getting most of them from our garden, which is wonderful. They boys are very proud of it and talk to everyone about their organic garden. 

The rainy season brought a lot of rain this year. That caused a number of floods in the Terai region of Nepal. Luckily, our boys and staff are safe. We did lose our electricity as the bamboo poles that hold electricity wires collapsed and there was too much water and mud for everything to get repaired instantly. So the boys had 3 days of just larger torches and no TV but they were completely fine. Monsoon season should finish by the end of August so we are hoping we will not experience more of those very heavy rains. 

And in the meantime, the boys were having a lot of fun with our volunteers painting more walls in the house, playing sports and going on short trips during their days off school. 

Thank you so much for your support. In the next report we wil provide photos of the happy chickens and happy boys!

Links:

• Video of our boys painting with volunteers

As usual, our boys will be celebrating many holidays in the upcoming days so everyone is very excited. With the exams finishing at school, the boys will get their break from studies and celebrate 12th April - the International Day for Street Children. We are organising an art competition for our boys and other children's homes in the area. Boys at our children's home and the day care centre are all preparing intensively and cannot wait the day. 

Shortly after that we will be welcoming Nepali New Year - 2076! And in May the boys will have a trip to Kathmandu where they will visit some temples, the best school in Nepal and will get some experience at a local dog shelter where our two lovely dogs, Sharo and Chimpy, come from. 

The boys are helping in the garden now a lot as well so we have more and more own veggies and everyone is enjoying a very healthy diet. From time to time local businesses have been visiting and bringing not always so healthy but delicious snacks for the boys as presents so fresh veg from our own garden is a must. 

We will have our volunteer from Spain coming back to visit the boys again and help with anything that's needed so the boys are very excited. We also have a couple more volunteers booked to come and help out with various things throughout the summer. If you'd like to volunteer at the children's home, day care centre or online, please feel to send us a message anytime. We always need a variety of skills! 

And as always, thank you so much for your continuous support!

It's getting colder and colder in the Birgunj area but the worst is still ahead of us - January. But luckily it tends to be sunny and very warm during the day so that's enough for our vegetables to grow nicely in our garden. We have cauliflowers, tomatoes and other veggies in abundance so all the boys and staff are very happy. 

Our wonderful cook Sarita has been trying new recipes (less chillies for the volunteers of course) and adding more fresh veggies into the boys' diet. We have also been limiting the amount of biscuits the boys are eating - that's tougher but they are learning about healthy eating at the same time. In Nepal people tend to eat an incredible amount of biscuits every day so we had replace them with other tasty but healthy snacks. 

We have been very lucky in the last few months as a number of volunteers assisted with the project on the ground. The boys have learnt a lot - some Slovakian, some Italian, arts, music. The volunteers also helped by sharing their skills with the boys that needed special educational support and assisting with the day care centre project. Two other volunteers will be spending Christmas and New Year with the boys so they should brush up on their Spanish and learn some French by the time New Year arrives. 

If you'd like to support our boys this winter, please donate to this project or other projects that we have posted on Global Giving. Also, if anyone would like to share their skills with the boys and spend some time in Nepal or help us from the comfort of your home, please email us. 

Happy Holidays to everyone!

It feels like the rainy season will never stop in Nepal this year. We are still experiencing heavy frequent rains and it's still really hot but all should calm down soon. The boys are still getting their feet and legs covered in mud when walking to school but they are having fun with that at the same time.

A lot of rain and humidity has been good for some of our vegetables so all are growing nicely. We are changing the types of vegetables to keep up with the seasons and half of the garden has been taken up by new plants. The boys also planted many new trees in the garden and are watching their new mango trees grow - apparently they can expect first delicious fruit in 2-3 years time. The boys have been telling us how much of a difference it is for them to eat their own vegetables - the taste is apparently amazing! 

They can also restart the building of the new big chicken run in the next few weeks, where we have less mud on the ground.

One of our dogs, Chimpy, has made new doggie friends who come and visit him almost every day and the boys are asking us to adopt some more. We have said no but have vaccinated his friends so that it's safe for everyone to be near them. One of the things that our staff are teaching our boys is love for all animals, something that is deeply missing in the Nepali culture. Now they are leading by example and pass this knowledge/experience to other children at school.

By the time we send out next report, we are hoping to have a nice new big group of chickens laying enough eggs for all the boys to enjoy them everyday.  We are now supporting more children through our day care centre in the centre of Birgunj so we are hoping to grow enough vegetables and produce enough eggs for the two homes soon. 

Thank you so much for all the support so far. It means a lot to us and to all our boys.