Nepal Earthquake #1YearOn

Our Dhading project got scaled down now as there are not so many children in the district that need emergency support, which is fantastic. We are working with one children's home over there and are employing one member of staff to manage any urgent cases together with the local government. 

One of the recent children that needed our support was a street boy from Dhading. We looked after him for a few weeks in Dhading and tried placing him with a children's home in that area as he has no parents and no home to go to. Unfortunately, all homes in the Dhading district refused to accept him so the authorities gave us permission to move him to our children's home in Birgunj. He has now started going to school with the other boys and all of them accepted him as their new brother. 

Little Dil Bahadur spent a long time on the streets so it will take some time for him to adjust to routine, school, healthy food  and all the fun with the other boys. But he is doing very well so far and started to feel like at home already! 

We are working closely with the authorities to assist any children in Dhading that need emergency assistance (and their families). We will be evaluating the project again in January 2018 and we will decide if to scale down more or to expand - depending on the need for such services. 

And a massive thank you to all for your amazing support - as a volunteer run organisation, it means so much to us. All donations are going directly towards supporting the children that need us here. 

There have been a lot of recent changes within the Nepali system and decentralisation of power is starting. That means that any decisions are to be made at a village level rather than district level as it is at the moment. For our project in Dhading it means that there is not so much need anymore for a transit home as all village committees will have responsibility to look after the children and cannot send any children to other towns. 

So after evaluating the project we decided to scale it down and help more children in different districts. We have signed an agreement with one local children's home so if there are any cases of children needing emergency assistance, they will take them in. We will cover all the cost and we have one staff member there to help out with everything. 

We are still of course supporting education of the children that have been at our transit home and also monitoring the family support part of the project. We are in touch with all the families and are visiting them and assisting as much as we can so that they can have sustainable income. 

We will evaluate the situation after 6 months and we will decide then if to continue the partnership with the local children's home - it will all depend on how many children are in need of emergency support and also on the local authorities. 

All the children that were at our transit home are now with their families or with good permanent children's homes. A few weeks ago we visited one of the homes that are now looking after our three children - amazing place near Dhading, on a hill, beautiful views, near a good school and all the staff and children there are very caring and welcoming. 

We will keep you updated with the progress of all the children and families in the months to come. 

A massive thank you for your support - none of this would be possible without it.