Nepal 2018
Each year board member Mike Cassidy travels to Nepal to check up on our projects and disburse funds. He travels to Nepal for three months. This year we donated $9100 to our projects throughout Nepal. We donated to two hospitals, two blind schools, a disabled children’s home, four orphanages, St. Debi’s Academy in Kathmandu, and the Rotary club of Nepal.
The first week Mike traveled to Butwal where a Lions Club Hospital is located. Money was donated to give free eye exams to 125 children who had probable vision problems selected from three schools. 25 of the students needed 'specs' and Global Reach International’s donation will provide glasses free of cost to those in need.
The next day Mike went to the Eternity Orphanage where a donation was made to 23 children. The money was to be used for food and supplies for the orphanage throughout the year.
After the orphanage stop, Mike traveled to Parasi Eye Hospital. He was presented with a report from last year’s donations. With the donation of last year, the hospital was able to give 1848 student eye examinations at five schools and 94 pair of spectacles distributed for free. We then gave a similar donation so that they can continue their work this year. On the same day Mike traveled to Santi School with a donation of $700 to buy six discounted hand held low-vision devices called a "looky" brought from the Netherlands without duty. The device magnifies script and switches writing from black on white to white on black to aid the correction of the student’s impairment. This will help Santi School advance their goal of making a district level low-vision center at the school.
The next few days Mike traveled to Parasi Blind Hostel. Global Reach International gave a donation of a new washing machine and a food blender that the house mother requested to ease the burden of care for the fourteen blind and low vision school children. Wooden benches were brought outside and the management from the school and Parasi Eye Hospital made a small presentation of gratitude for the gifts we gave. "very very thanks" the house mother repeated with the distribution of biscuits, oranges, bananas and milk tea.
Once Mike left the south of Nepal, Global Reach International had finished eight of our twelve programs in southern Nepal. We have made donations to two blind schools, two orphanages, set in place future children's eye exam programs at the Lions and Parasi Hospitals, provided low visions devices at LEI and contributed to the Rupendehi Rotary Club's sports-play ground area District Level project.
The second part of the trip concentrated on the northern part of Nepal. Mainly the Kathmandu valley and it’s districts. These areas were hit the hardest by the Nepal earthquake in April 2015. All of our projects in Kathmandu have been hurt by the earthquake.
Mike traveled to Bkatapur orphanage were a donation was made to their general fund for food and supplies throughout the year. We also gave out shoes to all the children in the orphanage.
Our other donations went to St. Debi’s Academy in Kathmandu and the Disabled Children’s Home outside of Kathmandu. Money is given to their general fund to keep the facilities in operation throughout the year.
We would like to thank everyone who gave to Global Reach International this past year. For the next year Global Reach International will be concentrating on raising funds for it’s future projects in Nepal. We generally raise between 10-15 thousand dollars a year to distribute to Nepal. Although our earthquake relief projects are complete, we are still raising funds to support our projects in Nepal. Please visit www.globalreachinternational.org to view our earthquake video.