Another Miracle...

Nepal House is very passionate about the work we do. Our team in Pokhara makes it a point to go the extra mile to ensure that the kids who come to Nepal House and the kids who need support get exactly what they need. The staff at Nepal House Kaski works with the childrens' families as well to provide proper communication, which is vital to the success of the girls school. The following blog entry is by Rajan, our administrative staff, chronicling another occasion in which the Nepal House team put the best interest of the child's saftey before anything else.

She is ten years. Her father has been suffering from tuberculosis for few years and could not buy medicine due to extreme poverty. Recently he was in contact with one organization that helped him buying medicine. The girl has her mother who goes to work if she finds work and bye food for family. The girl has one 4 years old sister and another smallest one is one year. The Ten years old girl never got chance to go to the school. One organization that called Shakti Group in Pokhara introduced her to Nepal house, Kaski. Nepal House,Kaski  staff went to visit the family. NHK staff realized that the situation in the family wouldn’t allow her to go to the school at that time because she had to look after her sisters when mother goes to work outside for long hours. We visited her mother many times and talked to her about the possibilities that improve the situation and  10years old gorl can go to the school.

The situation seems to be improving when father could be more responsible aftertaking regular medicine. We talk about admitting the girl at Nepal House school. The girl was happy to hear that she is going to attend the school in a week. The mother was saying that she would bring her at Nepal House, Kaski in a week. They didn’t show up on that day and we went to visit them instead. We the girl was badly injured. Very badly in her right eye. The girl and her two sisters were at home. She couldn’t open her eye. She was seeing with her left hand. She was full of tears and yellow/ red mixed liquid from her injured eye. It looked very serious injury. She said that she was not going to the hospital. I talked to NHK group and arranged her to go to the eye hospital immediately. I directly took her to the emergency unit and the doctor checked her immediately. It was very bad injury and she could easily loose her eye sight if she was a bit late, the doctor said. The doctor started treatment and admitted her there for one week. She got better and was able to save her eye. Now she is back to her home and we arranged her to come to Nepal House, Kaski School. She is very happy to come to the school. This is her first day at Nepal House School when I wrote this blog. We hope she will be able to continue her school and grow.

Rajan Dahal

NHK

A New Year!

We have all been waiting for it and it is finally here - the second grade! As most of you know, each year, the Nepal House school grows organically, adding a new grade starting with Kindergarten until the first class reaches 12th grade. At the end of this month, late May, our kindergarteners from last year will move on to the 1st grade class and a new set of girls will be entering the kindergarten class this year. The girls have already been selected, as well as a teacher, and a room in the Nepal House has been reserved for the next grade. As you read this blog, the last preparations for the school are being made, despite Nepal's current situation, and the school will be in session in just a few weeks.

I want to call out the Nepal House team in Pokhara and thank them for their hard work this year. They have all done an oustanding job and been pivotal in making the dream become a reality. We are so lucky to have them and the Nepal House US Chapter is looking forward to another successful year!

Namaste,

Kylesh  

A Message from Laxmi - Introduction to Counseling for School Teachers

School Principal from Srijina Higher Secondary Boarding School was looking for introductory counseling training to his 40 teachers.  It was the first time they were asking to organize training for such a big group. We were a little nervous but we had our volunteer Marcia Burton from Canada. She helped us to select the topics what is helpful to offer.   Learning about counseling is so new here so we were careful that we are not offering too much. The main topics we discussed were: Developmential Psychology and what it might look like if this is disrupted, Definition of Counseling, Teacher’s Role, Trauma and its Effects, When Children Need Counseling? Confidentiality, What NHK does and how to refer kids to NHK? Some experiential exercises and Self care.

Many of the participants were telling it is very new kind of learning. The principal said that their school would like to coordinate and work with Nepal House, Khaski in the coming future. One of the participants said that this training workshop was very helpful to have understanding about how to see children in a respective way.  Our goal was not to make them the counselors but to create an environment where we can talk about counseling and let them know how they can be helpful when students or the children have some issues and they have concerns. See them as a child and not as a problem. When children have difficulty with something and struggling, often people here think child as a problem which is not helpful.

Laxmi  Gautam Tripathi

A Message from Shiva - One Year Operation of the School

We are happy and proud that NHK School has successfully operated its first year. We are very thankful to all of the board members, social workers, organizations from Nepal, from Canada and United States for their support in different ways and we appreciate the parents for their cooperation. There were twelve girls and ten completed kindergarten. Two girls dropped out and we don’t know where the parents moved without informing us, we hope there was good reason they moving, and we wish for their better future. In a one year period, we learned many things about the children and families from difficult circumstances and it is very inspiring for us to upgrade a new class in this year. We have many referrals and applications and they are on the way to final selections. We hope we will be able to arrange the new class in three weeks.

The goal of the school was to educate the girls from disadvantaged families and support them through counseling and teaching them life skills for the future. Our teachers and counselors learned some important skills working with such families and their children, because they are the best teachers for us. Our team is here visiting the new families and they are exploring the children not only for the school but they have found some children who need immediate counseling. The school and the counseling program are very parallel and it is interesting that the field visit for school is finding the children who need counseling.

This time the team is working on preparing the new classroom, furniture, curriculum design, and many other tasks to open the new class. We are looking forward to seeing new children in the centre and we hope we can manage on time.

Thank you all again for your time and support. We will come with new updates very soon.

Shiva Thapa

Nepal House Month again!

Wow! Tami Roberts, a very close friend of Nepal House, has decided to host Nepal House Month again! She is donating the proceeds from her Thai Yoga Massages directly to Nepal House for the entire month of April. These are incredible massages that revitalize and refresh. To learn more about what Mrs. Roberts is doing and her massages, please click the link provided to visit her website. 

http://www.yewstudio.com/p/thai-yoga-massage.html

Thank you so much for doing this again Tami!!