Gifts for Nepal

Thanks to some generous donations, the kids at our School in Nepal got some winter clothes and toys!

Check out all the pics below.

Special thanks to WSDO Nepal for their help in coordinating this. 
 

A Sad Passing

Didi and Hema

I like to think of Meaningful Volunteer as a family. 

We have made so many meaningful connections with communities across the world. Returning to these communities feels like returning home. 

This extends to our staff as well who are truly immersed in their community. 

It is with great sadness that that I have to report the passing of Didi - our friend and sister of Hema Gurung our district manager in Nepal. Our thoughts are with Hema and her family during this difficult time. 

 

Returning Volunteers, Mums, and Mosquito Nets

Anne Eichmeyer, both a former volunteer and Meaningful Volunteer staff member returned recently to Buyaya in Uganda together with her mother Doris. 

The community were very excited upon their arrival and put on a welcoming ceremony. Anne was on of the key figures in securing some of the initial funds for the School for Andy and the community had not forgotten. 

Anne also managed to secure funding for about about 100 mosquito nets that were distributed around the village. Pregnant women and children are most vulnerable to malaria and they were given priority. 

Thank Anne and Doris! You are both amazing people and we are so grateful for everything you do! 

24 Oct 201

Playground Construction Begins in Nepal

As mentioned previously thank to a very generous donation by the Manley family, we have enough funds to construct a playground for our school in Nepal. 

Our school is located in a little village called Rithepani in western Nepal. If you peer our one of the windows of our school you'll see the Himalayan mountain range. The school was built on one of the few pieces of flat land around the village. 

Nevertheless, there is still ground work to be done before we can formally install the play equipment. The ground needs to be leveled in places, and a lot of rocks and debris needs to be cleared. 

This work is well underway and the kids will soon have a nice safe place to play to excercise their human right to play. 

Article 24 of the Declaration of Human Rights states: 
 

Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

"Rest and leisure" are what kids call play! 
 

A New Playground for Nepal and the Right to Play

Children being denied the right to play

Article 24 of the Declaration of Human Rights states that: 

Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.


For children, “the right to rest and leisure” means the right to play. The right to explore, to play games, to climb trees, to play hide-and-seek, and so many more childhood activities. 

This right is often ignored in both developing and non-developing countries. 

In places like South Korea, children are often pushed to extremes with several after school classes in subjects like English, music, art, and calligraphy piled on after regular school. This often sees young children spend upwards of 16 hours a day in education. 

In countries like Uganda, the same right is ignored as children spend countless hours milling the fields or smashing bigger rocks into smaller rocks for use in the building industry. 

With this is mind, we’d like to acknowledge and show our eternal gratitude to the Manley Family who made a very generous donation that will go towards a playground at our school in Nepal
Stay tuned for updates as our playground comes together. 

 

Rain Catcher Completed at our School in Uganda

I recently got an email from Mary and Esther - our hard working staff in Uganda - announcing the completion of a water catchment system that sits on top of the new classrooms at our school. 

Yay! 

This will provide yet more clean water to our students. What amazed me about the successful completion on the project is how very little I actually did. Mary and Esther did a wonderful job coordinating this whole project. We have such wonderful staff! 

I drank bottled water during my visits to Buyaya. One particular time I was there during the dry season. The locals went to the nearby well and got some water. I remember peering into it and noticing not only how dirty it looked, but also the little wriggly worms inside. 

So glad the kids at our school will be drinking rain water. 

Our long term plans is to get a deep water well for the village so that everyone can get clean water. The wells go deep into the ground to the underlying aquifer. Deep water wells cost about $US10,000 so it is a little beyond our budget at the moment.

Written by Malcolm Trevena