Nepal


Keshav Adikari is ‘our man in Nepal’. Like Krishna (who was our first ‘co-worker’ in Kathmandu), Keshav comes from a poor family living in a remote village in the Annapurna Region. From his humble beginnings, he showed his hardworking nature and great abilities in doing brilliantly in his studies and rising to the position of assistant Headmaster of a large secondary school in the centre of Kathmandu. Krishna was the founder and headmaster of this school with a strong commitment to helping the poor and disadvantaged in his country. This school was fee paying, but he also set up a school for the poor, and the small orphanage Haven on Earth, which we had the pleasure of opening on our first visit there in 2014.

Keshav shares Krishna’s commitment to helping the poorer members of the community and assisted Krishna in his charity work. They became our friends and were enthused by the work of Star Action. Krishna has family members working in the United States and has now gone to live there himself; Keshav continues his deep commitment to his work with us in Star Action.

 

Keshav has recently married his beautiful bride, Sujata, and she supports him in his work for us. Our most recent project has involved aid for the very poor in Kathmandu, traumatised even further by the effect of Lockdown. Keshav told us:

“Distributing food and clothes to the daily wage workers affected by the lockdown will be a good idea. There are thirty or more families who live in huts very close to where I live on the bank of the river Bagmati. As long travels are restricted, helping those families with some food, sanitation items and clothes would be ideal.”

As the photos show, we were able to send the money to Keshav to give this help, and even extend it to more families, thanks to the wonderful response from Star Action supporters reading about this project in our June Newsflash.

Then in our latest Newsletter, we have shared Keshav’s report of his visit home to his village where Star action has helped with repair of houses after the earthquake, and more recently in his little school where his road to education began! He wrote:

“With the resumption of long-distance buses I visited the library today that we helped build and I was quite happy to hear that the library is now in operation. My Dad who did most of the work for the library told me that the whole community of students, parents and teachers are grateful to you, me and Star Action.”

Keshav has used the donations you made and requested to go to Nepal at the end of 2016 to continue to help keep the 130 residents of the Tokha Centre for the Blind fed and warm during the winter.

Bir Laxmi Shrestha was glad of your help towards her kidney dialysis treatment and we now have hopes that this will be underwritten by the Nepal Government Health Dept. in the near future.

We have also been able to support the The Panchakoshi School in Pokhara, which urgently needed furniture and books after it suffered badly in the 2015 earthquakes; the house was so badly damaged that the owning family had to live crowded into a relative’s house for almost 3 years, whilst hoping someone will help them repair their home.

 

Tokha Home for the Blind and Handicapped

Jenny writes: 

On my last visit to Kathmandu I was happy to visit this home again and help distribute food and blankets.

After the terrible earthquakes of the summer of 2015, Star Action passed on some of your generous donations for relief work in this area, including the much needed blankets, sacks of rice and other staple food items.

We have decided to give a warm woollen scarf and a Christmas Lunchbox to each of the 130 residents and daily blind visitors. Keshav will organise this. 

 

CRISIS UPDATE:

We have thankfully received word that, following the devastating earthquake which struck on the 25th April, all of our friends in Kathmandu are OK.  Neither the Haven on Earth Orphanage or the schools we have supported have been directly affected.  

We will publish a fuller account of the situation as soon as we are able, but in the meantime we will continue to keep all of those involved in our thoughts and prayers.

In August 2014 Stuart and I had the joy of visiting Kathmandu.  Nepal is one of the ten poorest countries in the world and there is a great deal of very evident poverty in the city of Kathmandu.  Whilst there we visited a school for those who are unable to pay school fees.   We had such a warm welcome from them and were given a lovely demonstration of the pupils dancing (see pictures).  The school is in a hired building but on a busy main road. 

During our visit we were asked to officially open an Orphanage which is named Haven on Earth.  It is home to 24 boys and girls and is well  equipped but again is rented: the hope is one day to be able to build a permanent home for this delightful family.  A third visit we made during our time here was to a  home for severely mentally and physically handicapped people.  We were asked to help distribute blankets and food packets for the 20 residents there.

 

Ways you can Help

We already have a group of friends in the Netherlands who are holding fund-raising events and have sent money to us to forward to Krishna.  This has been most gratefully received.  You may have ideas yourself about how to raise some money for the poor of Nepal, or would like to visit and offer practical help in some way.  Please email Michael at staractioncharity@gmail.com with your ideas and any offers of help.

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