Saris and toothbrushes

The Project Snow Leopard girls were the “Official Photographers” for 2 exciting events at Bal Mandir Children’s Home in April. After practising their skills in Bhaktapur and Boudha, they were very proud to be taking photos to share these experiences with you all.

Lots of clean teeth for kids of Nepal, thanks to Cadbury and McKinney Rogers

“This is the way we brush our teeth” was the chant around Bal Mandir Children’s Home in Kathmandu in April, 2010 as the children were all presented with a brand new toothbrush, each with a tube of toothpaste in a brightly coloured bag made by one of the women we work with. We enlisted the help of former Cadbury nutritionist from Melbourne, Amy Valender, who is working with Mitrataa for 3 months in Nepal, to distribute the toothbrushes. I don’t know who had the bigger grin – the kids or Amy!

Members of both Cadbury and McKinney Rogers Asia Pacific teams had been collecting the toothbrushes as they travelled around the region on business. This was the third delivery we had made to the children of Nepal, thanks to the generosity of the Cadbury and McKinney Rogers staff.

For children who very rarely have possessions of their own, to have a toothbrush and paste in their own little bag means so much – they always ask with big grins “Who sent these to us? They must really care about us!”

Thanks as always to the staff of Cadbury and McKinney Rogers for your contributions.

A new uniform for the House Mothers at Bal Mandir

The House Mothers at Bal Mandir are the most important people in the lives of the 200 children who call this Children’s Home “home”. But they are so busy giving their love to the children, that they often forget to stop and give themselves a pat on the back for their dedication. So we decided to celebrate them while at the same time giving them a new sense of pride and team work but giving them each a new sari, a uniform for them to wear at work.

Once again, our budding Snow Leopard Project photographers were on hand to capture the grins on the House Mothers faces as they received their uniform, and later as they showed them off for all to admire!

Second Daisy Chains Graduation!

On April 29^th the Daisy Chains group of women from Gyaneshwor that are sponsored by MasterCard, graduated from the education and training phase of the program. This was a very exciting and emotional day for these women, also witnessed by a number of women from the previous graduating group, their sense of accomplishment and newfound pride and confidence is an inspiration.

At the beginning of our informal ceremony many of the women shared their personal experiences of how their lives have been forever changed by the simple gift of literacy:

“I am a widow and when I was illiterate, no one would listen to me. Even my own family would ignore me and try to take advantage of me. Now, no one can cheat me, I know my rights and I can read anything!”

“My own children respect me now, they know how hard I have worked. Now they understand why their own education is so important.”

These comments are indicative of the very positive and determined attitudes of all of the women in this group now. Throughout the course of the education component of the program all members of the group regularly contributed to the savings plan. This lead to the group accumulating 36,000 Nepalese rupees (about AU$580.00) in savings prior to graduation! 20,000 rupees of this amount has been lent back to various members of the group who were eager to start their own small businesses. Motivated by the success and ongoing support of last years’ graduates from the program, the women of Gyaneshwor have been moving forward in leaps and bounds.

As at graduation time, 17 of the women in the group were already working together in small groups to run their own shops in the local area selling items such as fruit, vegetables, prayer offerings, incense, snack foods, tea and hot food. This has been possible through small loans from the group savings program and with the guidance and mentorship of women from the previous groups in the program.

One pair of women are running a small shop next to the local temple and they sell various offerings, incense etc for visitors to the temple. They are now making around 14,000 rupees (about AU$226.00) per month. This is a fourfold increase on what they earned previously working as domestic labourers. The small loan they took from the group to start the business was repaid within just 3 months.

A further 3 women from the group have been so motivated by their studies that they have enrolled in formal school in order to complete their School Leaving Certificate (SLC). This is especially impressive as in most cases they will be studying the same material as their own children. One of these women has already completed class 3 in which she came first, and class 4 in which she came fourth, and she is now in class 5. She was the oldest of four children and so had to work to support her family and could not go to school as a child.

Core to the Daisy Chains program is that the women do not repay their loans to Mitrataa but they pay them forward to the next group of women. This creates a wonderful network and sense of camaraderie for the women. The highlight of the graduation ceremony was the Treasurer of the first graduating group handing over to the Treasurer of the new graduates the repayment of their loan amount of 10,000 rupees (about AU$161.00), each one carefully counting out the notes to a huge applause. The Treasurer from the first group commented that she felt relieved that the loan was repaid and was honoured to be supporting the dreams of the new group.

At the conclusion of the ceremony each member of the graduating class was presented with a small gift from MasterCard. The women were so excited by this and touched that people so far away had been supporting them to reach for their dreams.

The strength of the Gyaneshwor group is founded on the mutual support and respect each of the members share, the mentorship of the women from the previous group, and the strength and determination of the members. As a result, it is likely that the main business of the group will be a small credit co-operative for the members. This means each of the members can pursue their own small business interests whilst still benefiting from the moral, logistical and financial support of the group. This model shows a real maturity of the group and the program as a whole and makes an excellent foundation for the sustainability of the program in this locality. As with the previous year, we already have a waiting list for the next group which will start in June.

How amazing to think that less than a year ago, these 24 women were illiterate and now they have accumulated so much money that they are able to run their own small credit union for their own benefit!

Running for Mitrataa

Running to raise funds for Mitrataa has been a popular thing recently. My last post mentioned that 10 members of staff from John Wiley & Sons' Singapore office will be doing a 10km challenge race this weekend.


Well a couple of weeks ago, Claire Brown ran a 10km fun run in Scotland to raise money for us too. Claire did this to support her two friends, Rufus Stone and Katya Conway, who with their 2 daughters will be travelling to Nepal in September to live and volunteer for us for 5 months. Katya is a social worker and Rufus a children's counsellor and play therapist. They will be supporting a number of our projects through CWISH and Bal Mandir and their daughters will be attending school at Riviera, our model school.

Claire's very energetic efforts managed to raise £223 which will go towards our projects to create education and training oportunities for Nepali women and girls. So to Claire we say a big 'thank you'!


We encourage any of you who want to follow Claire's and the Wiley group's great example get in touch.

More energetic support from Wiley!

An energetic group of 10 from John Wiley & Sons' Singapore office will be taking part in the Sundown Marathon's 10km Challenge Race on the 29th May. They are doing this to raise funds for Mitrataa and in particular, the projects Wiley supports with us such as the Wiley Dream Centre. 


The participants are: Benedict Boo, Chin Ang, Maxim Shrestha, Fathrul Fazakir , Glenn Wray, Eugene Yap, Enrico Ventura, Melissa Dragon, Candy Lum, Melanie Sim.


If you're in Singapore next weekend I'm sure they would love some moral support! Of course it would be fantastic if anyone wished to contribute to their fundraising efforts too. To do that, you can email Glenn Wray or myself for details.


Good luck guys and thank you all so much for your support!

Dream Centres – success continues... the results speak for themselves!

We are extremely proud to announce that ALL of the girls in our 2 Dream Centres this session passed ALL of their exams! Before joining the Dream Centres, all of our girls were failing at least 1 subject, more in most cases. In a credit to the girls’ commitment to their learning and to our Dream Centre tutors, the girls showed a marked improvement in their last exams. One of our girls even came third in her class, and another came fourth and another came sixth. Coming from a position of failing at least one subject, this is a fantastic effort.

Although not at all surprised, we are very excited to see the evidence of the value of the Dream Centre program coming through so strongly for these girls, and this is just the academic success they are achieving. The increase in confidence of their plans for the future and their resilience and ability to bounce back from any challenges that life throws at them is equally important and we are confident that the girls’ skills have increased significantly in these areas also.

Our second graduation!

On our recent visit to Kathmandu, we were very proud to attend the second Dream Centre graduation – a combined ceremony of the girls from both the Baneshwor Dream Centre and the second centre, the Wiley Dream Centre in Chandol. The ceremony was held at the Wiley Dream Centre in April and 24 girls graduated, the ceremony that was conducted entirely by the girls.

Two girls acted as MCs for the event, one in English and one in Nepali. The confidence and pride these 2 girls showed as they conducted the event was so inspiring. We heard from 2 other girls (one in English and one in Nepali) on their experiences at the Dream Centre and the new skills they now have. It was interesting to hear the girls explain \how they had never been comfortable showing or discussing emotions before they attended the Centres, but now they understand that emotions are an important tool that they feel comfortable discussing and controlling which makes them feel much more confident in life. It was also great to hear them express how much they now believed in themselves and the dreams they have for their futures. Prizes were also presented to the girls from each Centre who were the most creative, most improved, most co-operative, best attendance etc.

It was also wonderful to hear from one of the girls’ teachers who attended the Graduation tell the girls that he had witnessed a huge change in them over the 4½ months they had attended the Dream Centre. He now saw them as more committed in their studies and more in control of their own futures and education. The grins on the girls’ faces, from a group of girls who had all been failing at least one subject at school and in many cases more, said it all!

The majority of the girls in our Dream Centres are domestic workers. We were very surprised but honoured that a couple of the girls’ guardians attended the ceremony to show them support. One of the guardians spoke to us afterwards and expressed her gratitude for the opportunity for her workers to attend the Centre. She had noticed a marked improvement in their attitudes and also told us how she believed that it is even more important to educate these children to ensure a better future for them. This is an unusually supportive guardian and we hope more follow her lead.

Our third Dream Centre plans are underway

Our third Dream Centre will open in October this year and it is being sponsored by MLC School, Burwood. The team at MLC, led by Rosemary King, have been fundraising and preparing for their trip to Nepal in September/October to officially open the Centre. We are currently scoping locations for the MLC Dream Centre and expect to provide an update on a final location shortly.

So stay tuned as this project continues to move forward in leaps and bounds…

Project Snow Leopard - Part 2

The final two days of Project Snow Leopard (Sunday, 25th and Monday, 26th April) were spent back at Bal Mandir with Linda reviewing all of the girls' images taken from their field trips to Boudha and Bhaktapur. Linda shortlisted the best shots for each girl and then reviewed them one-by-one to allow all of the students to gain as much feedback as possible. It was amazing to see the improvements from all of the girls in such a short time - there are some real budding young photographers in the group! Bec brought a photo printer on the final day so each girl was allowed to select their favourite two photos to be printed so they could keep them.


We conducted a quick feedback session with the girls in which they had to let us know the things they enjoyed form the project, the things they would like done differently, and the places they would most like to visit for phase 2 of the project in October. Pokhara was a popular choice here so we will have to see what can be arranged along those lines...

All the photos taken by each girl have been put onto an external hard disk so that they can look at them on computer whenever they want to. Also, Chetana will be visiting Bal Mandir once a month with the cameras to allow the girls to continue to develop the skills they have been taught. All of this will help them as they work towards the next stage of the project when Linda returns in October.


It has been a pleasure to watch these girls develop a new skill but it has also been inspiring to watch their confidence and self esteem grow as they begin to realise their own abilities and the potential each of them hold inside. We look forward to more of this come October.

Enormous thanks must of course go to Linda for her time and dedication to this project. The results so far are testament to her hard work and commitment.


We will be showcasing some of the photos from the girls and the girls' profiles on our website soon so watch this space...