Buy Chickens for street children in Nepal

It has been a really difficult time for many people in Nepal, and especially those in the Terai region where our children's home is based. Luckily, all our boys and staff are safe and healthy and quite enjoying time off school.

Due to the fact the our 'uncle Duki' who is normally looking after the garden and the grounds is not a live in member of staff, he has not been able to come to our children's home for the past 3 months or so. The risk of infection in local villages is pretty high due to people not observing social distancing so our boys decided to look after the garden themselves. The results are great and they are really enjoying their organic veggies, and running competitions as to who can grow more.

Because of the coronavirus and many very strict restrictions we were not able to bring our new chickens to the home - hopefully in the next month or two it will be possible. The boys keep asking about them!

The summer in Nepal has properly started and unfortunately that means a very hot weather and monsoon season again. A huge amount of heavy rain is not always the best for our garden but we're managing. The roads are flooded and very very messy so that makes brining supplies very difficult but at least the boys don't need to go anywhere now. 

Hopefully we will have more updates when the time for our next report comes. We just have to be patient. 

Thank you so much for all your support so far. It really means a lot. Please continue to support us and spread the information about Our Sansar amongst your networks!

Our boys and staff are hugely relieved that the coldest part of the winter has finished. It was a bit of a struggle as every year but many of our boys actually enjoy the colder part of the year due to massive heat in the summer. 

New chickens are arriving this week from the Livestock Department so they will all be vaccinated and apparently we will have fresh eggs in 2-3 weeks time. The boys cannot wait! We have also done some more work on the garden and planted new seeds so expecting some amazing tasting veggies really soon. 

As it's still the winter season, the boys go to school at 6am and finish around midday which gives them more time to play during the day and they do have a lot of energy to burn! On Saturdays they all visit our children at the Child Helpline and always help with creative activities there and make sure that all new children are welcome as a part of our family. As it's a dry season, they play a lot of sports outside so I think we will have future cricket and football stars amongst them!

One of our former children is now employed by us part time at the home and is doing an amazing job at keeping an eye on everything so that things work smoothly and is a great big brother to all the boys. We also have a lovely lady who is doing an internship with us and it looks like she will become our employee later this year upon completion of her degree in Kathmandu. We are very grateful for such wonderful team as the result is a home full of very happy boys!

Thank you all so much for all the support. Please feel free to forward the details of the project to any of your contacts. We are always looking for new volunteers. :) 

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!