By David Sowerwine | Project Leader
It has been fourteen years since the first WireBridge was built. Those villagers had asked us for help crossing the polluted Bagmati river that flows from the Kathmandu Valley. Without a bridge they faced a dangerous river crossing or a day and a half to reach the nearest health facility. With the bridge it would be a matter of 'only' a half day. It turned out that the bridge served for other purposes as well--permitting children from a large area to attend a school for the first time. As word spread, other communities requested bridges, and as donors were found, they were built. It became apparent that the measure of impact was not "bridges built" or even the number of passengers moved, but the unrecorded stories--real children in real schools, real access to health care, real ability to visit kin...otherwise separated by a river.
We hope to gather more of those stories as the WireBridge program matures. There will be more frequent trips to the bridge sites to provide maintenance, and these will provide the opportunity to discuss the WireBridge's impacts with the schools and 'mothers groups'. GlobalGiving donors make it possible to keep the path open for these services.
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