By Christopher Heun | founder and president
Our principals in Nepal say thank you
As we celebrate Thanksgiving, Santi School would like to express our gratitude to all of you reading this – our supporters who help make all of our work possible. And, we'd like to extend some words of thanks from the principals we work with in Nepal.
Here's some news from the field that we'd like to pass along:
A new drinking water system
Saat Kanya Primary School: Bhattedanda village development committee, Lalitpur district
Saat Kanya Primary School in the Lalitpur district of central Nepal did not have running water for six months, during the dry season, from December to May. Students needed to bring water from home every day. The school asked for our help to set up a drinking water system that would supply the school year round; we agreed to do so by investing $1,100 out of the total estimated cost of $1,500.
Now the school has drinking water for the whole year. We have also set up drinking water points that are accessible to all the students ages 4 to 10 who are studying at the school.
Mitha, the school principal, was grateful for our support. She said, “We are very thankful for Santi School for the help it provided us. We had approached various organizations but none of them came forward to help us. Your organization helped us to provide the basic necessity for our school children. The whole community is very thankful and would like to thank you from bottom of their hearts. They have promised to thank you on personally when we organize a program to hand over the water system that has been set up.”
Completing the first floor of a new school building
Jana Jagriti Higher Secondary School: Ikudole village development committee, Lalitpur district
Jana Jagriti Higher Secondary School in Laltipur district of central Nepal did not have enough classroom space. We helped them complete four rooms of a first-floor building that was partially constructed.
The school administration organized a ceremony to inaugurate the new school building. The principal, Hari, thanked us and said, “With the support of your organization, we have been able to complete the construction of the first floor of our building. This has really helped us conduct our classes in spacious rooms with sufficient sunlight. We remain indebted to you.”
During that ceremony, we were very touched by the efforts the students made to thank us. Almost all the students, around 150, brought a garland each from their homes and put it around our neck during the ceremony. A person who was garlanded along with us did not take it off until the evening–even after we attended another program after that handover ceremony. (That's the photo above).
Completing the second floor of an existing school building
Vishwamitra Ganesh Secondary School: Lalitpur district
We have been involved with Vishwamitra Ganesh Secondary School in Lalitpur district in central Nepal since 2011, helping them with construction projects and teacher training programs. In 2013, the school was selected as one of 100 schools in Nepal to pilot the implementation of technical education in secondary level (grades nine and ten). Next year, they are upgrading that to grades 11 and 12.
However, the school does not have enough classrooms to add the additional grades. We are helping them add two rooms to their existing school building. After signing our agreement, the school principal, Thakur, thanked us and said, “With the support of your organization in completing the construction of classrooms, we were able to start the technical education in grade nine and ten. And this current support in completing the construction of two more classrooms will help us upgrade technical education to grade 11 and 12. The students and the community have benefitted from the introduction of the technical education and we are thankful to you for being a part of starting this journey.”
A special thanks to our volunteers
Volunteers have always been a critical part of our program. We appreciate all the effort they give to living in the communities where they help teach. Volunteers live with a host family, which means they must learn a new culture and a new language, eat food they are unaccustomed to, and adjust to an entirely different way of life – all while getting to know the children and teachers at their school. And communicating with their friends and family back home can be pretty difficult at times, too.
Despite all these inconveniences and difficulties, we have received quite a number of volunteers from Nepal and abroad who want to work at our partner schools in Nepal. We are so thankful that are willing to broaden the horizons of our students, teachers and the community. We are pleased that they have formed relationships with the school where they have worked, in some cases writing to their host families and visiting them on their own, once they've finished officially working as a volunteer with us.
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 can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
