The little school that's teaching a whole village.

Our school grew this week as 15 new women and children moved to Her Farm. All were referred to us by an NGO working in another part of Nepal. The NGO had discovered the women and children in the course of work they are doing to rebuild from the quakes. The women of Her Farm are learning photography and videography (see our project Her Farm Films) and sent a short video showing how crowded our classes are becoming with all the new residents of Her Farm. The  video is short but was created 100% by the women of Her Farm and it is a wonderful first for them. 

Our school may soon become even busier, if that's possible. In addition to the many children who come for the morning program, the nearly 20 children in full-time residence at Her Farm and the 60-70 children from the local school who come to the farm each day for lunch, we may soon have to become a temporary school for the entire village. The local school sustained damage in the quakes. There's really no way to repair it and hold classes at the same time. We are working now with an engineer to design a building at Her Farm that can be used as the temporary village school while the current school is repaired. Stay tuned to our updates for more on that soon. 

Links:

• Short video of morning school

Months following the devasting earthquake(s) in Nepal we are still struggling to deal with the aftermath. For the school program it's meant making some temporary adjustments. For starters, we've had to shrink from 3 classrooms down to one. The other two classrooms are currently occupied by three families who lost their homes in the quakes. That's meant we've had to dismantle the computer-based learning program for a while as there just isn't enough space for it in the already overcrowded single classroom.

We've adjusted the focus to spend more time in one-on-one tutoring and assistance with homework assignments from the government school. Breakfast club has also been discontinued but it's been replaced by a lunch program. As Her Farm is only a ten minute walk away from the government school, we now invite the entire student body to the farm for lunch everyday. That's working out very well since our morning group is typically in the 20-30 student range now that we aren't running the computer classes so not near as many children were getting breakfast as when all three classrooms were up and running. We're getting a large turnout for lunch (40-50) so we know the children are getting at least one full, balanced meal a day. 

With delays in the government's reconstruction program it will most likely be mid-September at the earliest before people start rebuilding homes in the village. Once the families living in the classrooms are able to return homee, we will implement the full programs at the little school again.