MY REASON FOR THE TRIP

I have been thinking of something good to do for people in need, for somebody who is less fortunate than us Western creatures who live in total luxury. After reading an article about The Highlander Orphanage in Kathmandu, I picked that to be my project. I am going to raise money for the kids in an orphanage in Nepal. Now the challenge comes. HOW? ? First I am going to give them some of my time. I have decided to volunteer at the orphanage for 2 months to make it more real for me, to go out of my own comfort zone to see what life is really like there and not as a tourist. By doing that I hope others will contribute in different ways. My goal is to raise as much as possible to make a better life for kids who would live in total poverty if not for the help from others.


Saturday, December 4, 2010

FUNDRAISING FOR SCHOOL

My new ventures

                                      The kids in the mountain villages


Little girls running down the mountain side to go to school.

I am back now on this site. I have been back in Canada 6 months already, after my indescribable time in Kathmandu.  Time flies when you are having fun! I miss all the kids and I can't wait to go back to visit.

The reason that I am writing to you all is that I have now decided to raise money to build a school in Phujel Gorkha, Nepal, which is a small Himalayan mountain village about 10 hours from Kathmandu (of which 6 hours are by foot since that is safer than driving on the steep mountain roads that lead there). 

                                                                      

The little kids in the school now with dirt floors and no washroom facilities.

My goal is to raise and give enough money to build a new better school big enough for 8 grades with washroom facilities, and hopefully within a year be able to pay for good teachers too.  These kids deserve a chance at a good education without having to move away from their families to Kathmandu, a very polluted and dirty city full of garbage in the streets.  I lived it for 2 months and the clean mountain air would be much preferred.

So to everybody who reads this - I am asking for a small donation. 

If I get it out to enough people $10, $20 or $50 would be enough 
and I would match whatever I raise up to $5000, as well as travel there to oversee that the money is well spent.

My goal is $60,000 and whatever is needed for teachers' salary thereafter.  I realize there are a lot of fundraisers out there, but the difference is every cent you donate will go to the cause.  There are no administration fees since I am the only one involved and I will pay for my own expenses.  When I went there I thought I was going to give up 2 months of my time to help the kids, but I ended up being the one who gained so much from the experience instead.

Please contact me by e-mail at  love2hike@rogers.com  THANKS.

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Here are the youngest grades in front of their old school that only goes up to grade 5.


    The little kids are generally very happy even though they have nothing.



   A young boy who washes dishes all day for a restaurant instead of going to school because his parents can't afford to send him to school.


    Given the chance the kids can be very resourceful. The kids in the orphanage I worked in, made a ping pong table in the yard that they enjoyed very much.


   Two cute little kids who were greeting me with Namaste on one of my treks through a small mountain village.



In the street of another village I meet a  little girl and her sister with a look of despair in her eye's from an already way too tough life at an early age.


Some of the older kids migrate to the city in hope for a better life, to get an education that the villages can't offer, or work but can't cope and loose their job and end up on the streets begging and sniffing glue. A sad sight for me to see on my daily walks through the streets of Kathmandu.


       Or going through the garbage with the cows and dogs in the garbage strewn on the streets of Kathmandu.
     
                     
A sad little girl, that I would love to be able to help to get into a school and off the streets.



The cremation of a body  at the Pashupatinath Temple area,  where after wards the ashes are pushed into the Bagmati River.                                                                      



Young boys sifting through the dirty water in the Bagmati river after the cremations take place, in hope to  
find any valuables they can sell.




More kids sifting through the dirty river water. 

In the mountain village of  Dhunche where I trekked through, a little girl was helping her dad work.

Little kids running around by themselves on big construction sites where their  mothers are doing hard labour.