In Australia

After an absolutely amazing and exhausting 3 months in Nepal, and a quick 2 week visit home to Shanghai, I am now in Australia following up on all of the projects and doing some fundraising and admin work.

I have given presentations to a number of companies and Rotary Clubs with more to come in the next 2 weeks. I also had the pleasure of attending a dinner that was held by our good friend and supporter Libby Hathorn. Libby visited Kathmandu with her friend, Pat Granville Smith, and together they launched 100Views Art & Literacy at the Model School there. You can read more about this on our blog by clicking here. Libby arranged for a documentary to be filmed chronicling the experience and part of the purpose for the dinner was to generate interest in that. The documetary should be finished soon and we expect it to be a fantastic tool for raising the profile of 100Views as well as Mitrataa. There was a group of just over 30 people at the dinner and I had the opportunity to speak at length about the history of Mitrataa, our current projects, and some of our ideas and dreams for the future. We then held an open forum in which people were able to throw out ideas for fundraising, projects, and ways that they and others could become involved. It really was an inspiring and uplifting evening and I left with my head buzzing with new ideas and even more motivation.

A huge "thank you" must go to Libby and to Pat (who I have now discovered is a brilliant chef!) for hosting the evening and catering for it so well. So many possibilities and opportunities have already come out of it for which we are very grateful.

With many more presentations, meetings and functions to attend in the next 2 weeks I am sure there will be much more news as 2008 continues to be our most exciting and successful year so far!