Nepal Earthquake Relief and Recovery Fund

In the past 15 months, your donations to the Nepal Earthquake Relief Fund and funds raised through our matching campaign have reached nonprofits that are giving out sanitary pads, rebuilding homes, providing health care, trauma training, and more. Today, we want to share how your generosity has provided relief through education, ensuring that Nepal’s future generation of leaders are able to go to school, learn, and grow.

Educate The Children has been partnering with Nepal schools since 2014. When all of the 30 schools they worked with were destroyed, they were there to help them rebuild. Since the earthquake, they‘ve built temporary learning centers and brought students back to school. They are determined to give their constant support.

GlobalGiving supporters like you are helping Educate The Children achieve their mission to repair, rebuild and re-supply Nepal Schools. Your donations enabled them to support all 30 schools and begin the rebuilding process. They recently completed their first school structure and more is to come!

“We know that an improved school benefits its entire community, and given our extensive organizational expertise in this area, it really makes sense all around for us to put a lot of emphasis on schools in terms of our ongoing quake rebuilding efforts,” says Lisa Lyons, ETC Project Leader.

Educate The Children is not alone in this goal.

International Disaster Volunteers is also committed to ensuring a strong future for the communities and students. On June 15th 2016, they announced that they will be breaking ground on five permanent classrooms. This progress is a result of your kindness! More importantly, your donations will have a long term impact.     

“To tackle these underlying issues at their root, children need to be in school and receiving a quality education. Otherwise, communities will remain incredibly vulnerable to future catastrophes when they inevitably strike again, and the Nepali people will remain trapped in a cycle of poverty,” says Andy Chaggar, IDV Chief Executive.

Your support over the past year and three months has not just impacted those working in education. You have done so much more! We are so proud to be partners with all the nonprofits participating in the Nepal Earthquake Relief Fund, and look forward to seeing what your donations allow them to do next!

As always, thank you for your continued support and generosity!

This Monday marks one year since a massive, 7.8-magnitude earthquake rocked Nepal, killing more than 8,000 people, injuring more than 21,000 people, and destroying countless homes, schools, and cultural landmarks.

Your generous donation to our Nepal Earthquake Relief and Recovery Fund has supported a full spectrum of relief efforts, from emergency response in the first days after the earthquake to the long-term, locally driven recovery efforts still underway today. I’d like to share six inspiring stories that illustrate the wide-ranging impact you and the rest of GlobalGiving’s community of donors, nonprofits, and companies have made toward recovery in Nepal.

SEARCH & RESCUE EFFORTS

Five days after the first earthquake struck, when optimism for finding new survivors in trapped beneath collapsed buildings was beginning to fade, a member of IsraAID’s search and rescue team in the Gongabu district of Kathmandu heard a muffled sound coming from under the rubble of their base of operations. After life-scanning technology detected a faint heartbeat, the team spent five hours digging through mangled wires, concrete slabs, and broken pipes to rescue Krishnadevi, a 24-year-old woman who worked in the guesthouse that had collapsed on top of her. When I visited Nepal five months after the earthquake, I was able to meet Krishnadevi, who had recovered from her injuries and had been reunited with her children. Read the full story.

PROVIDING SAFE WATER AND MEDICAL CARE

In the aftermath of the earthquake, one of the most serious threats to public health was an outbreak of waterborne illnesses, as thousands of people were living in temporary shelters without access to proper sanitation facilities. Volunteers from Environmental Camps for Conservation Awareness (ECCA) sprang into action, producing WATASOL, a water purification solution and distributing it to those living in shelters and camps throughout the valley around Kathmandu. Since then, ECCA expanded their work to include running mobile health camps, distribution of food and water, and organizing educational activities for children whose schools were destroyed. Read the full story.

DELIVERING EMERGENCY SUPPLIES TO REMOTE AREAS

World Concern’s team reached Khalte, remote village in the Himalayan foothills, just a few days after the first earthquake. They discovered they were the first aid to arrive in the community where 95% of the homes were destroyed or damaged. Their delivery of tarps, blankets, and food to more than 1,400 families was essential. Read the full story.

CONNECTING SURVIVORS TO VITAL INFORMATION

Accountability Lab set up mobile citizen helpdesks in the hardest-hit districts around Kathmandu. In the days immediately following the first earthquake, their teams helped more than 500 Nepalis in a wide range of ways, including reuniting individuals with their families, finding medical care for people in need, connecting people with agencies distributing emergency supplies, and arranging safety inspections for damaged buildings. Read the full story.

GETTING CHILDREN BACK TO SCHOOL

The dZi Foundation has been a partner for community development in some of the most remote villages in eastern Nepal since 1998. The earthquakes destroyed or damaged 90% of the schools in the region, but within a month after the earthquakes, the dZi Foundation began working with those communities to construct 39 temporary learning centers so that 2,576 children could return to school quickly and safely. Once monsoon season passed, they began the long process of permanently rebuilding the damaged schools, with nine currently under construction and another 22 to come over the next three years. Read the full story.

HOLISTIC RECOVERY CENTERED ON WOMEN AND CHILDREN

In the months following the earthquakes, Tewa launched a range of programs to assist survivors on the long road to recovery, including empowering women through sewing and knitting skills so they could start generating income for their families again, providing tuition funding for displaced children to return to school, and training youth volunteers to promote psychosocial counseling for survivors. Read the full story.

On top of the daunting task of helping a nation rebuild after an earthquake of historic proportions, our nonprofit partners in Nepal have faced numerous challenges in last year—political turmoil over a new constitution, a fuel blockade, monsoon season, and a harsh winter—but with the support of the GlobalGiving community they’ve made tremendous progress in rebuilding a stronger, more resilient country for the people of Nepal.

We’re incredibly proud of what our community has accomplished together in the last year, and I hope you are too.

Warmly,
Britt Lake + the GlobalGiving Team

We are pleased to announce that GlobalGiving and GlobalGiving UK awarded 36 grants to organizations working to rebuild Nepal after the April and May 2015 earthquakes. GlobalGiving prioritizes local nonprofits and those that work hand-in-hand with local community members.  Every organization that is supported through GlobalGiving’s Nepal Earthquake Relief and Recovery Fund is fully vetted and nearly every project funded was visited by a GlobalGiving representative in 2015. Below is a list of the much needed efforts that your donations are supporting:

• Aura Freedom International: To open and run five Female-Friendly Spaces in Kathmandu Valley, Rasuwa, and Dhading districts.
• Build Change: To design and complete a mobile training unit to supplement the government of Nepal's standard builder training curriculum and deliver training via a mobile training unit in at least 12 villages averaging 500 families each.
• Children's Medical Aid Foundation: To provide clean water, solar light fixtures, and refill eroded earth from six schools in Naya Gaon, Kavrepalanchowk District.
• Concern Worldwide US: To help earthquake-affected farmer families build a better future through a targeted livelihood support approach.
• DCWC Nepal: To repair and rebuild schools and temporary houses in Nagre Gagarche, Kavrepalanchok District.
• Edge of Seven: To rebuild four permanent schools (Kalika and Pawe Secondary Schools, and Tsinga Kedi and Dudkosika Lower Secondary Schools) in Solukhumba District, serving 800 students.
• Educate the Children: To build five classrooms in temporary learning centers in three primary schools in Lapiland, Lamidanda, and Babare VDCs in Dolakha District.
• Environmental Camps for Conservation Awareness: To support earthquake-affected communities in Kavrepalanchowk and Lalitpur districts for better education, health, and economic opportunities.
• Esther Benjamin Trust: To rebuild schools, provide community training in education management, advocacy and school participation and install the first lending library in each new school.
• Friends of UNFPA: To run three Female-Friendly Spaces with a case manager, psychosocial counselor, and linkages with health and legal services in Ramechhap, Dolakha, and Rasuwa districts for six months.
• Global Family Village: To provide housing medical care, psychosocial and education support for earthquake survivors in nine earthquake-affected districts.
• Global Reach International: To construct one primary school in Kavreplanchouk and one 23-room high school in Dhading District.
• GoodWeave International: To build permanent homes for 40 weaving families in Hagam VDC, Fulpungkot VDC, and Dupachour VDC in Sindhupalchowk District.
• Green Tara Nepal/Karuna Trust: To conduct a post-disaster health promotion project targeting 10,000 people in three VDCs in Dhading.
• Himalayan HealthCare: To rebuild five schools in northern Dhading.
• International Disaster Volunteers (IDV): To construct, furnish, and provide supplies to six schools in Sindhupalchowk and providing training and support to local partner NGOs
• IsraAID: To provide psychosocial support, launch a 'life stories' program, and expand the 'honeyAID' livelihoods program.
• Journey Home Foundation: To provide clean drinking water to more than 4,000 people in Laprak village in Gorkha District.
• MADRE: To reconstruct 30 houses and conduct income-generating activities for 90 people in Sundrawati VDC, Dolakha District.
• Nepal Youth Foundation: To build three schools in Sipakhori VDC, Sindhupalchowk District.
• One Heart World-Wide: To build one maternity waiting home in Dhading District and one in Sindhupalchok District.
• Our Sansar: To support 200 families with training, animals, and small-business training and 400 children with education support in Dhading District.
• Partnership for Sustainable Development: To support the reconstruction of ten schools and two orphanages in five districts.
• Peace Winds America: To construct three community centers in Khokana.
• PHASE Nepal: To rebuild and support teachers and students at Siddhartha Primary School and Kalidevi Primary School in Hagam VDC in Sindhupalchowk and to support the retention of high-quality staff and provide some compensation for those who worked during the aftermath of the earthquake.
• Real Medicine Foundation: To construct four prefabricated houses for orphans cared for by the Nepal Children's Organization.
• Room to Read: To construct 10 classrooms in Nuwakot District.
• Samrakshak Samuha Nepal (SASANE): To support the repair or reconstruction of homes for 187 SASANE paralegals.
• Tewa: To support 25 long-term local volunteers in six earthquake affected districts in Nepal.
• The Advocacy Project: To support Care Women Nepal to organize health camps for earthquake survivors in Dhankuta District.
• The Global Fund for Children: To support three grassroots Nepali organizations rebuild earthquake-affected communities.
• The Mountain Fund: To provide new sources or water, restore housing, repair volunteer housing, and make homes earthquake-resistant in Mankhu and Goganpani villages in Dhading District.
• The Nepal Trust: To rebuild a six-room and provide all furniture and equipment at Shree Gorkhanath Primary School in Helambu VDC, Sindhupalchowk District.
• The Santi School Project: To provide specially designed classroom furniture and read-aloud training for 30 teachers in classrooms damaged in the April 2015 earthquake.
• Tributaries International, Inc.: To build 23 houses for families in Gorkha and Nuwakat Districts.
• Women LEAD: To rebuild the Women LEAD training hall, which was damaged in the earthquake.

Thank you again for funding this important work.  You are making a difference in the lives of so many in Nepal. 

It has been six months since a 7.8 magnitude earthquake shook Nepal and one month since I returned from visiting GlobalGiving partners working on long-term earthquake recovery.  I’m still processing the sights, sounds, and stories I witnessed and wanted to share those experiences with you as a GlobalGiving donor.  In two weeks, I saw first-hand the work of 14 organizations and met with nearly 50 nonprofits in Nepal.  I saw families living in tents, classes being conducted in outdoor structures, and clinics with cracks in the walls.  But I also saw survivors making their temporary shelters into homes, children learning how to read, and doctors treating patients.

The presence of the earthquake was visible; cracks are common in buildings throughout Kathmandu, and you don’t have to go far from the capital to see entire blocks of homes and buildings reduced to rubble.  I arrived at the end of the monsoon season, so construction crews were beginning to start work on rebuilding again, Much of the work is still focused on building temporary structures while people wait to hear what support - if any - they will get from the government to rebuild their homes and community structures.

Everyone I met was willing to share a story about where they were, how they reacted, and what life was like in the weeks after the earthquake.  I heard how aftershocks hit the country again and again, preventing people from sleeping or feeling safe inside the structures that still remained.  Many people talked about how they slept outside for weeks. Just as most people began to return to their homes at night, another 7.3 magnitude quake hit on May 12.

All of the people I spoke with agreed that this experience was only a preview of a bigger earthquake yet to come.  You can sense the uneasiness when people talk about the future, and can see how this plays out in the recovery process.  The need for earthquake-resilient buildings is a priority in rebuilding, but even well-built structures cause anxiety.  Many of the newly rebuilt schools we visited, only build permanent walls waist-high with the tops of the walls constructed of plastic or bamboo because students and teachers were afraid that another earthquake would cause their new school to collapse on top of them.

As Nepal tries to rebuild, a new crisis has emerged in the last few weeks.  A fuel shortage has stunted recovery yet again, as the delivery of much-needed supplies are blocked from getting to hard-hit communities.  This comes at a particularly critical time as our partners are trying to get supplies where they are needed before remote communities are cut off by snowfall and people begin to experience the difficulties of winter.

While there is much still to be done, I have confidence and admiration for the GlobalGiving partners working to rebuild their own communities.  The individuals I met were extraordinary.  They had been working tirelessly for months - often without pay or sleep - to help others who were affected by Nepal’s recent earthquakes.  The road to recovery has been difficult, but your donation has made it easier for people to move on with their lives. Thank you.

It has been three months since the 7.8M earthquake that killed more than 8,000 people in Nepal.  There have been hundreds of aftershocks since then, and more than 600,000 homes were destroyed.  Your donation is already helping to provide relief to millions people still in need of humanitarian assistance, as well as helping countless others to begin to rebuild after the earthquake.

In the last two months, an additional 28 organizations have received relief or recovery funds from GlobalGiving donors. A description of these organizations and how you’re supporting their efforts are below:

• Ama Foundation is supporting the community where their home for orphaned children is located by providing food, power, medical supplies, and educational materials.
• American Himalayan Foundation is repairing buildings and replacing supplies and damaged equipment, including among mobile field hospitals, across the region.
• Build Change is impacting reconstruction throughout Nepal by making disaster-resistant construction designs and training available to the government of Nepal and local and international NGOs working to rebuild after the earthquake.
• Community Development Center Kathmandu is providing uniforms and school supplies for children in Dhading.
• Concern Worldwideis providing transitional shelter and materials to 35 primary and secondary schools in Dolakha.
• DCWC Nepal - Development of Children and Women Center is delivering supplies of tents, rice, medicine, and blankets to rural villages.
• Do Your Part is rebuilding homes in Langdi and Mahipate villages and providing uniforms and school supplies to children as they return to school.
• dZi Foundation is working in Solukhumba and Khotang Districts to build and reconstruct civic infrastructure buildings, including schools, bridges, and community structures.
• Edge of Seven will build seven temporary learning shelters and one permanent school in Solokhumbu District.
• Environmental Camps for Conservation Awareness is working with schools to provide educational materials, life skills camps, school lunch, solar lights, and more.
• Fuel Relief Funddistributed more than 13,400 gallons of gasoline and diesel to fuel vehicles for the UN, Doctors Without Borders, and other international NGOs; to power generators for hospitals and survivor camps; to fuel motorcycles for local Nepali citizens, and more.
• Global Reach International will build 20 permanent structures that will be used as schools, homes, and local community centers.
• Global Vision International Charitable Trustis providing emergency family packs including food, sanitary pads, toothbrushes, soap, flashlights, candles, a lighter, cloth, mosquito nets, medical kits, blankets, and tarpaulin shelters.
• Himalayan HealthCare will provide one month's food for 2,400 households in Tipling, Lapa, and Sherthung, and rebuild five schools with 10-12 classrooms.
• Internewsis initiating open air studios and an SMS rumor tracker to provide critical information to local communities throughout Nepal.
• IsraAid is rebuilding shelters, providing seed packs for farmers, providing education kits and medical services, as well as providing psychosocial support to survivors.
• Journey Home Foundation is distributing rice, sugar, tea, first aid, soap, tents, mattresses and blankets in Gorkha district.
• Karuna Trustis targeting post-earthquake long-term health needs including mental health, antenatal issues, identification and referrals for infectious diseases, sanitation, health access for low caste groups, and sanitation.
• Keystone Accountability is conducting surveys on perceptions related to services, people’s sense of agency, outcomes, and the quality of relations between aid providers and survivors so that relief and recovery work can be more responsive to the needs to community members affected by the earthquake.
• MAP Internationalis shipping necessary medicine and medical supplies to organizations working on the ground throughout the country.
• Mercy Corpsis providing non-food relief items, unconditional cash transfers, emergency shelter, and water and sanitation interventions in ten districts in Nepal.
• PHASE Nepal distributed tents, food and other essential supplies and is providing health care in Gorkha and Sindhupalchok.
• Rajasthan Samgrah Kalyan Sansthan will provide food, blankets, and clothing for survivors, as well as distribute educational supplies for children.
• Room to Read will construct four-room school block, establish child-friendly libraries, and provide teacher training and support for two schools in the Palpa District.
• The Santi School Projectwill build/reconstruct three secondary schools damaged in the earthquake in Lalitpur District and to conduct a feasibility study on the possibility of a 'lab school' in the future.
• Sarvodaya provided food, shelter, water and sanitation supplies in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake.
• SASANE provided clean drinking water, food, and clothing for paralegals that are part of their program and who were affected by the earthquake in Nuwakot, Dhading, Rasuwa, Kavre, Sindhupalchok, Bhaktapur, Patan and Kathmandu.
• Save the Children provided immediate emergency relief and are continuing with long-term relief with a focus on children throughout many of the earthquake-affected districts

GlobalGiving staff will be on the ground next month to check on the progress of these grants and bring you stories from those your donation is impacting.  We’d love to hear from you what questions you’d like us to ask while we’re there. And, as always, thank you for your generosity.