Bridges Nepal UK Trust News Letter 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 19^th 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.