The situation in the southern parts of Nepal, Terai, where our children's home is located, has been very complicated for the past few months. There have been many strikes against the new constitution and the border between India and Nepal has been blocked by the protesters. This has caused a massive problem for the whole country with lack of fuel and supplies being a major issue. All the prices are going up, there is lack of medicines, gas, heaters and other materials. This can mean a very difficult winter. The schools the region are closed so our children are studying at the children's home. Luckily they are still able to have their computer, guitar and other extra curricular classes as usual.
We are trying to grow more vegetables as the current crisis might affect food supplies as well. We are also trying to get more chickens from farms nearer to Kathmandu so that we get more eggs. At the moment, no cars or buses can reach Birgunj so we need to wait with delivering anything until the situation calms down a bit. As there is no gas available, we are cooking on fire - but the food is as delicious as usual!
Our children have just celebrated Dashain festival and are all very happy despite everything that is happening around them. Our home is still safe as it is in a village, off the main road, so the strikes are not reaching that area. We also have a good relationship with a nearby factory and their security staff so all staff and children have practised running to the factory for protection in case something happens.
Situations like this make us want to make the project even more self sustainable so we are looking into expanding our vegetables growing, getting more chickens and possibly another buffalo for milk.
And very exciting news - our buffalo is expecting a baby any day now so we will be updating everyone on how the little one progresses shortly!
And thank you again to all our supporters - without your help none of this would have been possible.
Julia and the whole Our Sansar team
2 years have passed since we opened our children's home in Birgunj. We have seen an amazing change in all the boys and the whole project.
The buffalo is really happy and some great news - she will have a new baby in 3 months, so a new addition to the Our Sansar family coming soon! The home is very much welcoming - it's not uncommon to see the buffalo or a chicken inside, or our dogs playing with a chicken outside.
We have quite a few own vegetables in our garden and the boys are really enjoying planting their own veggies. They get nutritional food, eggs, milk and loads our own organic cucumbers, beans, pumpkins and other greens. We are now planning to plant lemon and mango trees to provide great fruit, shade and to keep the snakes away.
The boys are also learning more about recycling and, unusually for most of Nepal, we keep all the plastic separate and not burn it as other households do in the area. We will be taking plastic bottles to a recycling factory in Hetauda and will be speaking to the authorities in Birgunj to initiate more eco friendly activities in the area.
We will be keeping you up to date with all the developments as there should be quite a few in the nearest future.
And thank you everyone again for all the donations - without you, the project would never be possible!
Firstly, I want to give you a quick update on our chickens, our buffaloes and our ever expanding vegetable patch - in our missing to achieve sustainable living in our children's homes for the street children of Nepal.
Our chickens couldn't be happier in their coop and safe to say the boys are absolutely benefiting from their eggs. With our chicken eggs and buffalo milk, the boys are in fact so fighting fit and healthy that they have taken it upon themselves to start the first ever cricket tournament between some of the other children homes in Nepal! They have been training hard and the first match has come around very quickly....
Our cricket tournament for street children in Nepal starts today!
The 4th April sees children's homes across Nepal come together to start the 2015 cricket tournament, running up to the celebration of International Day for Street Children on the 12th April.
Find out more about our Cricket Tournament Global Giving project here: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/cricket-for-street-children/
Our Sansar are very excited about the cricket tournament and the opportunity it gives the children to experience something that, to other kids, is a normal part of growing up.
Preparing for the competition has already had a positive impact on the boys at the children’s home. 13 years old Samjad said: “We will make new friends and meet big brothers. We will have lots of fun.”
This unique, first of its kind competition will bring together 18 children’s home teams from across Southern Nepal. This memorable day we will also raise awareness of the plight of street children in Nepal where an estimated 5,000 young people suffer on the streets. Living on the street means children are unable to attend school, eat regular meals or make solid relationships. The tournament is a great chance to learn vital skills, such as team spirit, sportsmanship and determination. But we urgently need your support...
Julia Krepska, founder of Our Sansar, said: "We are very excited about the cricket tournament and the opportunity it gives the children to experience something that, to other kids, is a normal part of growing up.
"Living on the street has meant that, before now, these kids have been unable to attend school, eat regular meals or make solid and lasting relationships. The tournament is a great chance to learn vital skills, such as team spirit, sportsmanship and determination.
"We hope that the tournament will have a lasting impact on the children taking part and will contribute to a secure foundation for their future development."
The cricket tournament is being held to coincide with the Consortium For Street Children's annual International Day For Street Children, which aims to give a voice to the millions of street children around the world.
Have you been keeping up with the team announcements on our blog?
If you missed it, check out our blog and read the team player biographies. We have been introducing all the boys and they have all been very excited to have their first official interviews as cricket players. Most recently we caught up with Nikhil, Ryan and Sajan - our official Team Our Sansar bowlers. https://oursansar.wordpress.com/2015/04/01/its-nearly-game-time-for-teamoursansar-meet-our-bowlers/
The boys are so excited about the tournament and it gives them a welcome break from their education, and a chance to meet new friends! Of course none of this would be possible without your ongoing support - THANK YOU!
The fact is, it isn't all fun and games and there are many many more children in desperate need living on the streets of Nepal. Our project is initially about a bit of fun for the boys in our children's home - but everything we raise goes towards not only keeping our children's home open, but our dreams of expanding it in the very near future. We WILL make this happen - and we sincerely hope you will be there with us when it does.
As always, thank you from the Our Sansar team!
PS. for all of you extra keen cricketers out there - we will be posting live updates from the matches on our Twitter account, follow us @OurSansar.
The 2015 Tournament Matches:
Chitwan - 4 April starting at 9am (Nepalese time) and last game at 5pm (Nepalese time)
Hetauda - 9 April at 8am (Nepalese time) and last game at 2pm (Nepalese time)
Hetauda - 10 April at 9am (Nepalese time) and last game at 1pm (Nepalese time)
Hetauda - 11 April Girls team at 9am (Nepalese time) and last game at 1pm (Nepalese time)
Hetauda - 12 April - THE FINAL kicking off at 11am (Nepalese time)
Links:
Happy 2015 everyone - we hope your celebrations were as fun-filled as ours.
Over the Christmas holidays the boys were very busy with their artwork - making some fantastic festive pictures. What do you think of them? Perhaps we should make them into some charity christmas cards for next year?
We also enjoyed a lovely picnic to celebrate the New Year, although it was pretty chilly that didn't stop the fun and the hot food certainly helped!
What does the New Year hold for Our Sansar?
Thank you for your ongoing support, we want to make the 2015 the best year yet - getting the funds for healthcare and a dentist visit is the first step to this! We are already well on our way with plenty of sporting activities for the boys - check out a few of our photos - the boys had a special cricket lesson for Christmas!
We are welcoming new street children in to our home in Bigunj, Nepal, regularly which is a fantastic achievement, we also received a mention in the local newspaper last week! But, our resources will only go so far and with 100s of children living in poverty on the streets we need to do more. This year we hope to expand our services and be able to provide outreach support, helping with medical care and food for the children still living with no shelter.
In the meantime in our children's home...
Alongside the sporting activities and festive celebrations, we have all been giving a little back to the earth. We want to make the home self sustainable and have come a long way to achieving this with our own buffalo's for milk and chickens for eggs. This week the boys loved planting their own trees :-)
As always, a huge THANK YOU from the Our Sansar team and the boys in our children's home.
Firstly, we want to make sure you all know about our upcoming UK fundraiser - the comedy event of the year....
Comedy Rocks is coming to Brighton, England.
This 3rd December we are delighted to present Comedy Rocks, an extravaganza of stand-up comedy. Featuring unique sets from fantastic comedians such as Simon Evans, Zoe Lyons, Marcel Lucont, Michael Fabbri and other great acts.
All proceeds will go towards supporting our much-needed children’s home in Birgunj, Nepal, which provides vital shelter and education to vulnerable street children.
Now, on to the important updates....
We are one step closer to building our sustainable home for the street children of Birgunj, Nepal. With over 150 children living on the streets of Birgunj, this is no small task!
This week we welcomed the newest residents - our chickens....they are absolutely loving their homemade coop (thanks Nepalese team for doing a fantastic job).
Next up - our organic vegetable gardens!
In other, children's home news:
Earlier this month, we celebrated the important day of dashain, called Bijya Dashmi, blessing all of our children for a successful life! For the occasion the boys received chocolates and sweets from the local company, Salt and Sweet Ltd! Obviously the boys were thrilled with this particular donation :-)
It is important we thank our local Nepalese supporters too - from local business owners, community officials and even worldwide manufactuers - thank you all!
We have also had a lovely visit from Raina and Manisha who managed to raise a fantastic £2000 for Our Sansar. When they arrived they found a happy home with children eager to learn - from guitar classes to excelling at maths at school.
Read all about their adventure here.
OUR BIG NEWS..... we have welcomed 2 new boys to the home this month, welcome Dilip and Bikash! They are busy settling in to their new home at the moment and getting to know our families' mother, other volunteers and of course the rest of the boys. We will bring you some more updates on them shortly!
Thank you for reading and of course, thank you for your ongoing support and interest in what we do! The boys lives have changed some much since December when we welcomed them into our home, they are all receiving a fantastic education, healthy, nutritious meals and a loving family home - we are confident that they will all have a future away from the streets!
And of course, we are always looking for dedicated and motivated volunteers - if you are interested in getting involved with our work - contact us now at oursansar@oursansar.org
Links:
Project Reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you will get an e-mail when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports via e-mail without donating.
We'll only email you new reports and updates about this project.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser
Make a monthly donation & get 
