By Peter Mason | Executive Director
We have begun work in the Solukhumbu to address the severe needs of classrooms that were damaged and destroyed by the twin earthquakes of 2015. We're quickly approaching the one-year anniversary of the first quake (on April 25 and the second on May 10). This has led us to reflecting back on what has happened and how much more there is to go.
After the quake, we immediately went into response mode supporting our local partners to do what they can. In the short term we also invested in 14 temporary classrooms on the ground. This kind of initial response was important because it kept so many children in school rather than abandoning their education on the spot, never to return. Today we are working to rebuild 14 permanent classrooms as well. We're proud to announce that 6 classrooms are underway. We'll be visiting these sites to survey the progress and the challenges inherent in building in very rural and inaccessible locations. For instance there are no roads so all supplies come in via trails and are hand-carried in.
But what else? One of the things that we've been reflecting on is that our projects are in severe need of including water and sanitation solutions in ADDITION to the classrooms. For instance at the Ramailo Jyoti school the sanitation block (one boys and one girls) was entirely destroyed. You can see in the picture below that the damage is complete. They have one temporary toilet for all 180 students.
Our work this year is now to round out our perspective on the "School System" to include water and sanitation as necessary components of EVERY school to ensure that hygiene, water supply, and toilets are not new reasons that children don't attend school. We are working in April 2016 to plan out how to install new toilets, handwashing stations and where necessary new or upgraded water supplies so these schools can become closer to fully functional.
We're looking forward to sharing this principle of "learn" with all our partners, collaborators, staff, donors, and communities where we're looking. For more on our principles of how Edge of Seven works you can see them here: http://www.edgeofseven.org/our-approach-2/our-model/
Thank you for all your support and generosity. Namaste --
Pete
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