Improving rural schools in Nepal

Thanks to your generous donations, we have been able to bring safe drinking water to communities where it was needed most. One recent project – at Gyan Prapta Basic School in Bakaiya Rural Municipality, Nepal, a community school serving eighty-nine children – shows just how much of a difference this simple change can make.

Before the project, students relied on untreated water drawn from an underground source and stored without filtration, leaving them at risk of illnesses such as diarrhoea and vomiting. As the school's principal, Sobha Rai, recalled: "Before the project, it was very difficult for us to manage safe drinking water for the students. Children often had to drink untreated water, which worried us about their health."

With your support, we were able to install a proper water supply system: storing and treating lifted water, fitting a purification system and building new child-friendly drinking water taps. The results speak for themselves. Students now have reliable access to clean, filtered water throughout the school day, and they can wash their hands and maintain good hygiene – something that was simply not possible before.

One Grade 4 student, Nawaraj Thokar, put it simply: "Now we have a new tap with clean filtered water, and we can drink water anytime during school. It makes us happy and helps us feel better during our classes." A Grade 5 student, Pramila Gole, added: "Our school feels better and more hygienic than before, and I like coming to school every day."

None of this would be possible without you. Every donation helps us reach another school, another community and another group of children who deserve nothing less than safe, clean water. Thank you for making projects like this happen – and for continuing to change lives, one tap at a time.

With gratitude

YOUR SUPPORT AT WORK IN REMOTE NEPAL

High in Nepal's remote hills, 65 children were walking up to two hours every morning to reach Bindeshwori Primary School – through mountain terrain, in all weathers. When they arrived, they found leaking roofs, walls that shook in the wind, and a structure left dangerously unstable by the 2015 earthquake. "We want to study, but it is hard to focus when we feel unsafe," said 14-year-old student Resam. Their headteacher feared the worst: that the classrooms would collapse during lessons with children inside.

That is what your donations to Child Rescue Nepal are helping to change.

Laying the foundations

Getting to this point has involved more work than you might imagine – and we mean that in the best possible way. Before a single stone can be laid in a remote, hilly region with limited road access, a careful foundation of agreements, relationships and planning has to be in place.

That process is now complete.

Our local partner, the Esther Benjamin Memorial Foundation, has spent months bringing together everyone essential to the project's success – the school management committee, ward officials, local contractors and community leaders. A formal Memorandum of Understanding has been signed, setting out the responsibilities of every party and ensuring full accountability. A coordination structure is in place so that all involved are aligned and pulling in the same direction.

The classroom design has been finalised to government standards, incorporating earthquake-resistant construction, good ventilation and natural lighting. The site has been surveyed, construction materials transported up mountain roads to the site, and foundation excavation has begun.

A community building its own future

What moves us most is the community's own commitment. Local families have pledged to contribute their own labour to help build these classrooms. The parents who have watched their children walk miles to reach a crumbling school are now rolling up their sleeves to be part of building something better.

What happens next

Over the coming months, the walls will rise, the concrete slab will be poured and the finishing work – plastering, painting and electrical wiring – will be completed. The goal is for the new classrooms to be ready by July 2026, giving 65 children a safe, bright, earthquake-resistant space in which to learn. They serve children from the Chepang and Tamang communities – among the most marginalised in Nepal.

Your impact

Projects like this are made possible by supporters like you. Your donations to Child Rescue Nepal fund the sustained, careful work that reaches even the most remote communities – the partnerships, the planning and the construction that turns a dangerous building into somewhere a child can truly thrive.

Because of donations like yours, the children of Bindeshwori Primary School will no longer have to fear the walls around them.