Time to catch my breath

Unbelievably I am now sitting in my office back in Shanghai after a whirlwind last week in Sydney. I am trying to keep the blog up to date with everything that has been going on but I can't keep track of all of it myself at the moment! Some of the main happenings are listed below...

On Friday 18th I gave a presentation to the staff at LEAP Legal in Sydney. I in fact used to work for LEAP before Bec and I left Sydney and two of our board members, Hunter and Sarah, still work for them. I spoke for around half an hour about how the Foundation was started and then about all of the projects we are working on at the moment. It was great fun to re-visit my past life in Sydney and of course I always get a buzz from talking about Nepal and the Foundation. The highlight of the experience however was the very sizable cheque that was presented to me as a donation to Mitrataa. As well as this LEAP have set it up so that staff can contribute to the Foundation on a monthly basis directly from their salary. They are also exploring other fundraising ideas and opportunities for us. I have to say this turned out to be an amazing afternoon and just when I thought I was beginning to feel exhausted and drained this filled me up and set my mind racing with more ideas for projects and ways to impact Nepal.

I want to express my heartfelt thanks to Christian Beck, CEO and Richard Hugo-Hamman, General Manager at LEAP for contributing so significantly to our work. It really means so much and enables us to make a difference to many more people struggling throughout Nepal.

During my final week in Sydney I devoted my time to MLC Sydney as there was much follow-up work from their trip to Nepal in April as well as plans for future trips and projects. I attended a devotional assembly at the school at which I was interviewed by two of the girls from the Nepal trip, this was an interesting take on talking about Nepal and it was a lot of fun if not also a little daunting to have to think on my feet with hundreds of school girls watching! Some of the girls also shared some of their feelings and experience from the trip and it was great to hear how they felt about it after they had returned home and had time to process everything.

I spoke at another assembly at the school, and then followed this with a talk to Years 8 and 10 students about non-government organisations and how they work. I found this really rewarding as it gave me a chance to speak more about some of the logistical and administrative things we have to do as part of the work of the Foundation, the things people generally don't see or hear about. My final presentation to the school was in response to a donation of money raised by the girls since their return from Kathmandu. This money was to be applied to the Daisy Chains project so I spoke to everyone about the background to the project, how it works, and then introduced them to the group of women they would specifically be helping. I think this meant a lot to the girls, particularly those who had been involved in the fundraising as it made very real the contribution they were making and hopefully it will inspire them to continue to be involved in these types of activities.

I walked out the gates of MLC at 3:20pm on Thursday and after a farewell dinner with some friends found myself at Sydney airport on Friday morning wondering where the last month had gone!

I want to take this opportunity to once again thank everyone who I met during my visit to Sydney and especially those who have contributed in so many different and wonderful ways to the Foundation and our ongoing work. 2008 has already proven to be our most successful and exciting year yet - and we are only just over half way through it!