October 2017 - February 2018

Mandira and her daughter creating a mandala

Decorated furniture store 

We arrived in Nepal this year between the two main festivals of Dashain and the other Dipawali.

Dashain festival is spread over 10 days celebrating the goddesses Durga and Laxmi.  Families celebrate in their homes as well as at their local temples.  People travel many days to get together with their families, the older members of the family give their blessing to everyone.  

The completed mandala

Dipawali is a 3 day festival full of light and colour with many people visiting friends and relatives, playing music and dancing in the streets or in their courtyards.

Part of the festival is completing a Mandala  in the front of people houses or business with different coloured powder. Tea lights are placed around it and coloured lights are strung from the houses.  We enjoy walking around our area looking at these colourful decorations and enjoying the music and dancing.

Our flat is on the top floor of this building

Each year NAFA and our Nepalese partner ,  Joy Foundation Nepal, co-sponsor a remote cataract eye camp conducted by Tilganga Eye Hospital. These eye camps are conducted in remote villages where the Tilganga bus can get to with all the medical equipment and staff.  

This year the camp was in a village in the Gorkha district which was badly affected by the 2015 Earthquake.  Four Joy board members and Ross from NAFA attended this 2 day camp.

The Tilganga team set up a surgical theatre in a school room to start operating on people who had been screened for cataract surgery - the removal of their damaged cataract and the implant of an Intra Ocular Lens (IOL).  The success rate for these operations is very high and so most people who  were either ‘blind’ in one or both eyes were able to see again and become a useful member of their family.

The patients in these remote areas are mainly subsistence farmers so are not charged for this operation as the main costs are paid for by the donor which in this case was NAFA and Joy Foundation Nepal.

JOY Foundation members

Ross, Agreni and Pratika in the JOY office

NAFA’s  partner in Nepal is the JOY Foundation Nepal which is a charity set up by local business men to help disabled and disadvantaged Nepalese. They also assist with relief work after major disasters, such as flooding from the monsoon or during the past earthquake.

JOY rents a small office for their administration staff which they share with us while we are in Nepal.  Ross spends most days in the office, it is a good meeting place when interviewing students and meeting with village co-ordinators.

These villagers come in the Kathmandu to submit applications to NAFA for funding, collect funds when they are approved or to collect bags of jumpers for the village school children which will later be distributed when we visit the village.

Beaded bracelets

Handing out wool

NAFA has assisted the children living at Prisoners Assistance Nepal (PA Nepal) since 2003 through education sponsorship.  Soon after we started this program Brenda began teaching craft to the children at the home, mainly knitting, crocheting, sewing and beadwork.

14 years later Brenda is still teaching - each year more young children start at the home and they are eager to learn these skills.  The older children help Brenda to teach themare assisted by the older ones who have learnt from the skills Brenda taught them.

Boys also enjoying making
things for themselves

Saturday is the only day the children have off from school so Brenda packs all the wool and other items in a couple of  bags and travels the 2 hour journey to their home in Sankhu, outside Kathmandu. Once there she inspects their work and hands out fresh yarn so they can continue with their projects.

Ross helping to make earrings

Over the years the children have made various items from bed covers, pencil cases, ponchos, slippers, gloves, hair scrunchies and patchwork cushion covers and different beadwork items.  They get to keep everything they make.  Many of the items they make are for gifts for their teachers, friends at school and their mothers in jail.

In  October we visited the school of Shyama,  a 8 hour jeep journey from Kathmandu,  to check the progress of the 5 classrooms that were being rebuilt since the earthquake.  Phurba, our friend and guide managed the trip, organising the jeep and the lodge.  Sabin, our  Nepali architect who drew up the plans and Manish, our Nepali admin and financial manager, who got the plans approved and has been monitoring the projects, accompanied us.

We paid for their wives, Rojita and Neva to join us, so it was a fun trip as well as a bit of work.

Three classrooms had almost been completed and they were starting on the foundations of the second block of two rooms.  Our architect was pleased with the work which met the standards of his plans.

It was an enjoyable day at the school.  We were given a very warm welcome with kartas and garlands.  The children sang their national anthem and a few other songs and Rojita and Nea handed out beanies and sweets to all the children. 

That evening we celebrated in the lodge with a delicious meal and a few drinks.  It was lovely to spend time with Phurba Sherpa and the group.  The following day we arose early for our return to Kathmandu.