Planning the Learning Centre

In this video Sam tells me about her record of building learning centres in remote areas of Nepal, and how she has won some awards for trying to make positive changes in Nepal.

Joe shows me a map of Nepal and talks about its situation and neighbours.

When I had decided to help them with buying building materials we went off to builders merchants to start getting prices.

Joe’s father Ganesh came along to negotiate the best prices.

I was impressed with how much Joe knew in detail about what materials would be needed.

After this work got started Sam and Joe spent many months in the Saldum village area supervising the building work which you saw in another video..

Sam caught Dengue fever and had to be hospitalised during the project. He also developed a skin problems which might have been related to the water quality in Saldum Village. They spend many dark miserable nights with the rain pouring down and few comforts they could have enjoyed in the city.

Despite the poor internet they managed to send me regular videos which I saved and was able to use for this web site. At the time I had no thoughts of setting up a UK charity. The building work was done mostly in the monsoon season because usually the rain is at night. When they hired the mechanical digger they had to work day and night to get the excavation of the access road done as quickly as possible.

Now the learning centre has been built it has to be finished off and put into use. It needs running costs.

To maximise the benefits to them I recently realised it would be best for me to be able to claim tax exemption on my donations from the UK.

We considered setting up new UK charity to benefit Nagarjun learning centre. However, due to the covid pandemic the UK banking sector was slow to organise us a charity bank account. Since one or our trustees – Captain Tulasi Paudel already ran a charity called help4nepal www.help4nepal.org.uk supporting health and educational projects in Nepal we proposed that donations for the Nagarjun learning centre project be channelled through the help4nepal web site. Help4nepal was registered with the UK charity commission in December 2019 as Charity Number 1186858. The trustees of help4nepal welcomed this suggestion and hence our web site now directs donations to be made to help4nepal where they are earmarked specifically to benefit the Nagarjun learning centre.

They need money to complete the electrical work and plumbing and add security. Then they need educational equipment. Then they need teaching staff and a program of activities. They need a management committee.

I can see a way ahead as we now have a building and money goes a long way in Nepal. A head teacher or policeman earn about $200 a month in Nepal and many of the families in the Saldum area will be living on less than $20 a month. It is easy for people from the UK to make a difference.

I believe that so far the work has cost a total of around £15,000 – £20,000. The volunteers also put in their time and effort. We now see a solid structure but so long as it sits unused it is money wasted so we have to push on. You will see the enthusiasm of the villagers in one of the videos and they will be very disappointed if it never benefits them. Covid has set the project back a lot.

Can you help support this amazing project and change lives?