Bridges Nepal UK Trust Newsletter 3
See the results of your donations
Neil Ambler chair of Trustees was able to visit some of our partners (Sally and Yagha of Bridges Nepal NGO) in October to view the results of the donations you have made over the last 18 months. This Christmas message is therefore his report back on your generosity.
Disasters continue:
Travelling to Bhadragaun Village (no longer camp, as they say “We live here now”) for the third time I was struck at the resilience of the people who have arrived here from primarily Ri and Lapa where traditional family homes and farms are now largely unworkable due to the effects of the 2015 earthquakes and seasonal landslides.
Their resilience is exemplified by the two families that have lost everything again due to fire resulting from a gas bottle explosion. Looking at that picture of the ruptured gas bottle I’m sure to think of them with no beds-clothes-food next time I use my family gas barbeque.
With your ongoing and new gifts we have been able to make a grant to provide these families will essentials before the winter truly sets in, follow this link to see this story in full.
Results of Trafficking persist:
For the second time now I’ve been struck by the image of children in the village that do not look like the other children running around.
Having travelled to the village with our Anglo-Nepali partner family (Sally and Yagha Singh and their 17 month daughter Vera) It was striking how Vera wasn’t the most obviously mixed race child around the village.
In the village was another mixed race child who was fairer than Vera and had brown hair rather than the black hair of all Nepali mothers. Seeing her reminded me of the history of trafficking I read about this year that the Bombay-Mumbai red light district set up by the British Army in the mid 19th Century. This area is still a destination for some of the 10,000 people trafficked from Nepal each year.
Yagha and Kanchi discovered that this beautiful girl's family were from the north of Dhading district and we surmise that they have a long history in the north as the people from that area are fluent in the Tamang Language.
A Mother’s worry and a grandmother’s fight
The most challenging memory reinforced my desire to champion the work in these villages. One day whilst we were offering to pray and give advice a grandmother brought her daughters and grandchild to us. The grand child was not taking the breast and both mother and grandchild seemed lethargic.
It emerged the child has recently had a fever of 104 degrees but did seem to suck on Sally’s finger but was clearly not getting enough nutrients. The mother looked terribly worried, more so than a few days of baby not taking feed. We learnt that this precious woman had already lost on child at this age (6-9 months) of malnutrition and a two year old of unknown explanation from the doctors.
Yagha was able to speak with the father who was trying to ensure his wife only ate simple food so that mother would be able to feed baby well. Unfortunately the standard food available would be rice and dhal and very few vegetables so the simple food of rice would have very few of the key minerals and vitamins necessary for baby.
We were able to send the family off with advice to eat better and seek further medical support if the sickness persisted.
Toilet stories
The challenges of toilets was ever present during my visit
- from the polite as possible discussion of the challenges we were facing in the bathroom of the team
- to the technical discussion of the opportunity and risk of using human waste for fertiliser from the soil scientist and one of our partners and the obvious reality that it is only possible for crops harvested reasonably far from the ground such as maize etc.
- to banged heads of the tall Europeans in the toilet blocks built for the rather shorter and squatting Nepali’s in the village.
Sweet as Honey
With the relocation of entire villages there is great need for income generation. With the help of our partners and one of the first beneficiaries moving a whole queen bees hive on his neck. Hives have now been established in Bhadragaun.
Yes even the people on the 50 km trek from his village wondered what this humming buzzing growth of queen bee and entire hive of bees was. This will eventually be bottled for sale but in the early phase makes a very good supplement to the diet.
Water begins to flow
As regular readers of updates from Bridges Nepal UK Trust will know we are starting to raise funds for the village's water supply security. Our partners Bridges Nepal NGO are already starting to work on the enhancement of the supply to the village.
The Village has been able to tap into the neighbouring village water supply for two hours a day that they use to fill a number of local tanks in the village. This supply is not a permanent solution as the neighbouring village will not permit them to take it forever.
During the conference, Yagha demonstrated the building of a filtered water solution with the materials we sourced from Kathmandu and Dhading River bed. Each of these filters cost about £100 to make 97% pure by removing in the words of Yagha “animal poop and groundwater contaminants like arsenic”
Our focus on fundraising is for a village header tank that could be filled in the wet season to give the village resilience for the dry season
To support these projects:
We very much value your interest and prayers for the continuing work in Nepal and would be delighted to give you further information. If you would like to make a donation to this coming years target of £10000 of which we are approaching £4000 please use one of the methods below:
Our Bank Account details for transfers is:
- Account Name - Bridges Nepal UK Trust Bank CAF Bank
- Sort Code - 40 52 40
- Account Number - 00032219
- We have Gift Aid Declaration Forms available for you to maximise any gift to us. HMRC Charities Number ZD00116 for Gift Aid.
- For those that already give tax efficiently please make donations via our Stewardship Services Account 20262292 or with CAF Online Registration 21000756838.
- Use our Give.net to register for gift aid as you donate: https://www.give.net/BridgesNepalUKTrust
For further information please read our Update Newsletters