In April 2010, Childreach International opened an office in Nepal.  We registered Childreach Nepal as a local NGO and Childreach International as an INGO.  Both Childreach Nepal and Childreach International are now affiliated with the Social Welfare Council, Nepal. This in-country office is staffed with experienced and knowledgeable local staff, who understand the local community and understand the culture and have strong links and contacts with the government and key decision makers. This office will facilitate the future expansion of our work in Nepal.

Childreach Nepal currently supports seven inspiring projects and partners; the Association for the Welfare of the Intellectually Handicapped, Antardristi, Chiluane Secondary School,  Yangrima School, Dhulikhel Hospital, Roshi School and Tree Planting Project.

Our partners and projects

Association for the Welfare of the Intellectually Handicapped (AWIH)

Association for the Welfare of the Intellectually Handicapped (AWIH) are an organisation that works in Kathmandu to raise awareness concerning intellectually handicapped people. Childreach Nepal is working with AWIH to help support their Skills Development and Day Care Centre, and their home visits programme.

The main objectives of this project are; to support and educate parents of children with learning difficulties, to raise public awareness and banish misconceptions about those who are intellectually handicapped and to develop the life skills and confidence of children with learning difficulties to help them lead more independent day-to-day lives.

Shristi Gurung, aged 11

Shristi suffers from Autism, and was identified by AWIH whilst completing home visits around Since joining the AWIH Day-care Centre in December 2006, Shristi has been provided with an engaging platform to help improve her everyday living skills to lead a more fulfilling life. She now shows a keen interest in painting and art, and loves to dance.

Antardristi

Nepal currently struggles with an ingrained social stigma surrounding sexual abuse, resulting in such incidents often being ignored or concealed, and support is often expensive and scarce. Childreach Nepal works with the charity Antardristi, whose aim is to empower young people and children to overcome various psychological problems and lead healthy lives.  Together they have opened two residential centres for children who have been sexually abused, providing psychological support and counselling for the victims and their families. They have also helped raise awareness regarding child sexual abuse through community training sessions.

Sanmjana, aged 12

“I like staying in this house, I can play, I can study.  I have friends. I was unhappy before, now I’m happy.  I want to be an engineer when I grow up.”

Karishma, 4 years old
“I want to be like the people who work here”

Devi, 14 years old

“I want to continue my education."

Chiluane Secondary School

Rural communities in Nepal often struggle to receive education. Chilaune Secondary School is a community led school located in a village called Manikharka, which sits at an altitude of 2,400m and was established in 1988 offering free primary education to children from the local community. However, since then it has also expanded to incorporate secondary education, enabling students to obtain their School leavers Certificate at 17 or 18.

Childreach Nepal supported Chilaune Secondary School by building a block of classrooms, to improve the conditions for the students and teachers alike, however, recruiting and retaining teachers to work at the school still poses a challenge, given the remoteness of the area.

Childreach Nepal continues to support the project financially, funding the teacher’s salaries to ensure that the current teachers remain at Manikharka School, and that new teachers are attracted there, with the aim of maintaining and uplifting the standard of education.

“Thank you for helping us when there was no roof; you helped us to put up a roof. Before we had the building the children could not concentrate; it was too noisy.  The building is beneficial for the children”
“Thank you for choosing one of the remotest schools for your help”

 

 

 

Yangrima School

Childreach Nepal has helped Yangrima School in the rural village of Shermathang re-open after closing during the civil war. The project also helps support neighbouring primary schools in the region, whose pupils will eventually come to Yangrima School for their further education.

In their first year after re-opening, the project far exceeded its expectations of what it hoped to achieve; attracting a much higher number of pupils than anticipated, and bringing many families back to the area. They are confident that this number will increase each year making Sermathang and the surrounding villages a thriving place to live, work and play, as was the

case pre-civil war.

Read more about Yangrima school, it's pupils, and the re-opening of the school featured in Nepal's national newspaper, Republica.

 Dhulikhel Hospital

Poverty, geography and weak infrastructure means healthcare for rural communities in Nepal is limited, if not impossible, and with an urban population of only 12%, this problem is of paramount importance. Through our partnership with Dhulikhel Hospital, we have established a ‘School and Child Health Programme’. This promotes rural school health education and carries out mother and child health camps and research activities. This has benefitted almost 2,500 mothers and children to date. A paediatric training centre for outreach workers has also been established.

The objectives of the programme include; increasing the knowledge and skills of the health workers in relation to the management of common childhood illnesses, initiating school health programs in the project area, conducting research on child health and establishing telemedicine facilities in the Outreach Centres.

Durigar performs the eye screening programme.

“The screening programme is important for children as it can ultimately prevent blindness. In most cases only one eye is affected. An undetected high refractive error not only reduces vision but it seriously hampers their studies. 5% of the time children have common cases of short sightedness or long sightedness. Within a week of coming to Dhulikhel hospital, we make glasses for them and they say that they can see better and they therefore feel much better."

Sudhan, aged 4

Sudhan came into one of our Outreach Centres in June, with his toe nearly in two pieces. As his family is very poor, they couldn’t afford treatment, however on the day they came, Dhulikhel Hospital had a visit to the Centre, and so the team managed to take him to hospital and deliver prompt treatment to his foot. As well as receiving treatment, he has also had clean clothes and good food for the duration of his stay in hospital.

Roshi School
Roshi Higher Secondary School was established in 1972 by a handful of local people aiming to provide eduation to children. The school received approval to run secondary level classes in 1990 however since then has faced numerous challenges to maintain a good standard of education. Childreach Nepal is working in partnership with ‘Helping Society Nepal’, a local NGO, to construct four new classrooms for Roshi Higher Secondary School. These will replace classrooms that are currently in danger of collapsing, posing a risk to the safety of both teachers and pupils. By providing a safe and comfortable place to learn, the project hopes to increase the intake capacity of the school and to improve the school environment for the students.

Find out more about Helping Society Nepal.

Tree Planting Project

The tree plantations project is carried out in Bashum, in the Solukhumbu district in Eastern Nepal, with the aim of visibly improving the environment in the villages in which the trees are planted.

The village is located in the same district as Sagarmatha National Park, where Everest is located. Climate change is seriously threatening the park’s ecosystems, due to glacial melting, which poses a real risk to both the environment and human lives. The project aims to raise local and government awareness of climate change and deforestation in the area, and equally help to reduce the risk of soil erosion, flooding and water shortages.

Phurba, aged 17

“Today I am very happy because the people of another country helped us to plant sixty-four trees in the Cheplunge jungle. If we plant trees, it doesn’t landslide, we could save our drinking water and we also get good air. They are from another country, but they love our country and are saving our country forest so I thank them. Thank you very much.”