My name is Jenny Sherpa, I am British by birth but have become part of a rural nepalese community in recent years as I am now married to a Nepali national. Although we now reside in the UK, we have a deep love and affection for this country and it's people and would like to help our village community as much as we possibly can. Over the years we have sent money regularly to our immediate family to help with the childrens education and this money has gone towards school fees, books, exams, uniforms etc.
However, we now feel that we would like to assist the village on a larger scale and this is our first step towards doing that. We were last in the village in January 2011, and had spoken to one of the head teachers of the school in Those, Ramechhap who informed us that there is a genuine need for funding to assist local schools with the essentials such as writing books, text books, uniforms and even help to provide food for the children at lunchtime. I have seen first hand how the parents struggle to fund their childrens education, but at the same time trying in any way they can to give the child an education, even if this means borrowing money and getting in debt to fund it.
Most villages are just living by subsistence so how can they be expected to pay for all the school cost by themselves? When it was time for us to leave the village we felt strongly that we would somehow seek assistance with this and thus we are doing just that right now. We are total novices when it comes to obtanining funding for a project and would welcome any advice and assistance in this matter.
This is the starting point for us and hopefully we can make a significant change to help the lives of those in rural communities, starting with the one closest to our hearts.