The power of friendships that inspire – Rotary District 9700 adopts Mitrataa!

We are so excited to be working with Rotary District 9700 – South Western New South Wales, Australia. This RAWCS project, driven by Bathurst Daybreak and Orange Daybreak Clubs, has already made a substantial different for our work at Bal Mandir Naxal Children's Home and this is just the beginning!

Gaye, Irene, John and Dave with Rachana

In January, a team visited us with fantastic results. After 2 weeks with us, they had:

• Given the babies’ room a complete overhaul with a fresh coat of paint, new mobiles for all the kids, a good scrubbing down of all the cots, new hot water heaters for the mothers and a great dose of love for everyone involved. Thanks heaps especially to Sylvia, Niamh, Ann, Irene, Judy and Gaye for their wonderful support here.




Irene and Gaye with the happy mothers and babies in their newly painted room!

• Installed an inverter into the computer room and donated (and set up) 4 laptops for the kids to use. Thanks heaps to Dave, John and Graham for this.

• Fixed a lot of the lights and other electrical issues in a number of the kids’ rooms. Thanks heaps, John and Dave!
• Run first aid training for the mothers and a group of the older girls. Thanks, Sylvia!
• Run a painting workshop for our toddlers – we discovered a couple of Picassos in the making! Thanks heaps, Jane and Judy and everyone who helped with this.
• Kicked off some renovations to fix our front gate, and 2 of our staircases.
• Donated some bags for the kids to use for school bags and for basketball gear.
• Donated some lanyards which will shortly be used for our new Visitor Passes.
• Visited our model school in preparation for the April teacher training team. Thanks, Judy and Graham.
• Visited Bhaktapur Rotary Club to discuss future support – Bhaktapur Rotary, supported by Rabindra Puri, is the local Rotary connection.
• And scoped a number of other projects for support moving forward.

Sylvia bandages up Asha in First Aid Class

I am exhausted just thinking about all that they did! Thanks so much to the amazing team who dedicated their energy to working with us. It was fantastic. Thanks especially to Graham Tyson for driving this project and organising everything.

 

Now we are madly preparing for the next wonderful group to arrive on Saturday. There will be 3 teams:

• A teacher training team who will be working with our Riviera, model school, teachers and a group of teachers from the village and a team who will be also working with our toddlers teachers at Bal Mandir;
• A health team who will be working on dental and mental health issues at Bal Mandir; and
• A maintenance team who will be working on the bunks and cots at Bal Mandir to help us say goodbye to bed bugs once and for all!

Thanks to Mary Brell who has helped put together this fantastic team. We are excited about what they are going to achieve.

Jane mentors our future Picassos!

This partnership is a perfect example of how a really mutual, focused partnership can work and we love working with the Rotary team! Thanks heaps, guys. You all get the Hero of the Day Award!

Our Dream Centre girls come together for a day of competition, sharing and learning

On 30th January, all the girls from our Dream Centres (DC) came together at Bal Mandir for an exciting event of sports competitions and inter-centre interaction.

At Mitrataa’s core is a belief in the power of networks and so bringing the girls from the different Dream Centres together to get know each other and share their ideas as well as to have some fun was a great way to build a stronger network amongst the girls. We also wanted them to play different games together to develop their cooperation skills - ultimately developing their communication skills which is one of the main life skills we focus on.


In total 31 girls from 3 different Dream Centres –our Pilot Dream Centre in Baneshwor, the Wiley Dream Centre in Chandol and the MLC Dream Centre in Koteshwor – participated in 3 different competitions: musical chairs, badminton, and a three-legged race. In musical chairs, the Baneshwor DC grabbed the first and the second prize, and Wiley came third. In badminton, the first and the third winners were from the Wiley Centre, and second was from Baneshwor. In the three-legged race, two pairs from Wiley came first and second respectively. For the third position, there was tie between two pairs from Baneshwor.


 The action-packed competitions were followed by peer discussions between girls from different centres. Each pair consisted of girls from different centres, and they spent some time together discussing themselves, their dreams and their Dream Centres. From this activity, the girls learned about the similarities and differences between the different Dream Centres.


Then, all the girls came together again to discuss how the Dream Centres can be more effective. We were really impressed with their brilliant suggestions which we will definitely incorporate into our programs.


For many of the girls who are domestic workers, getting out for the day to run around and have some fun is a real treat. We really enjoyed seeing all the girls from the centres together sharing ideas, and competing healthily. Huge thanks to Diwakar and Kamal, two of our facilitators at Dream Centres for planning this great event. Thanks to Bipana, our Dream Centre and Training Coordinator for coordinating and managing all the logistics. And big thanks to facilitators of all the centres for making it a great success.

Our First Wiley Women's Dream Centre Graduates!

Our first Women’s Dream Centre opened on International Women’s Day in 2011 with the generous support of one of our long time friends and supporters, John Wiley & Sons. The Wiley Women’s Dream Centre aims to bring together our Dream Centre model of “skills for learning, skills for life” with our Daisy Chains women’s literacy, numeracy and business skills program. The 6 focus skills are:

There are 6 modules in the program which aim to give practical context to the skills being taught. The modules are:

·         Me!

·         My family

·         Schedules

·         Shopping

·         Wellness

·         What next?

In December 2011, the first batch of women graduated from the Wiley Women’s Dream Centre amidst lots of singing and dancing. They were so excited – a very lively bunch! They wrote and sang a special song to thank everyone for their support too.  Rather than having a single MC as we do for our Dream Centre graduations, we had a “hot potato” approach – when the music stopped, the woman holding the ball had to share her experiences in the Centre with the group. This way everyone had an opportunity to share and it really showed their newfound confidence. It was fantastic to see them proudly reading their experiences from their notebooks – no more illiteracy in this group!

Thanks, Wiley, and congratulations to our wonderful women! We look forward to seeing what how they continue to work towards their dreams! The majority of them have been accepted into skills training programs to enable them to continue to develop their skills with their newfound literacy.

Libby Hathorn inspires our girls with poetry

Well-known Australian children’s author, Libby Hathorn, has been a wonderful supporter of Mitrataa for a long time now, beginning with her support of 100 Views Kathmandu in 2008. She visited Kathmandu again in November, with her friend Sandra, to again share her creativity with us. In addition to working with the illustrator of her children’s book called Sangita’s Singing which was inspired by her first visit in 2008, she is also exploring a short film based on the book to help raise funds for Mitrataa. She managed to fit in time to run a poetry workshop for some of the girls at Bal Mandir and we were very happy (but not surprised!) to discover that we have some budding poets in our midst! The girls all threw themselves into the workshop as they imagined themselves as a river flowing down through the Himalayas and then explored the sounds, smells, sights of the river’s journey to write poems.

Thanks, Libby, for all your support and energy. You are an inspiration!

Merry Christmas!!!

Just a quick Christmas note to let you know of some fantastic last-minute gift ideas. Visit our online store or contact us directly to find out about ways in which you can make a real contribution to the children and women in Nepal as a very special gift for friends or family.

Bec reports that all is well in Kathmandu but it’s freezing cold with 10 hours a day of load shedding (no electricity) which is expected to increase for Christmas. They're having a Christmas party and 'Bal Mandir’s Got Talent' show for the kids tomorrow (Christmas Eve) so watch this space for updates ...  

So don't forget, if you are looking for a present for loved ones that means a lot why not make a donation in their honour?!

Best wishes for the holiday season and 2012!

Wiley Runs for the Biggest Dream Yet!

John Wiley & Sons is one of our closest partners and we love working with them so much. They embrace everything that Mitrataa stands for – following dreams, creating friendships and networks and building on what is already working to become even better.

Over the last few years, Wiley has sponsored our Wiley Dream Centre in Chandol, our Wiley Women’s Dream Centre in Gyaneshwor and our soon to be Resource Centre at Bal Mandir Children’s Home.

Every year they hold a wonderful fundraising event for us called “Run for a Dream”. They invite all their Singapore employees to get involved as well as all their local partners, so it’s a complete Wiley family event and so many volunteers really make the event happen (the team are in the photo in their red shirts with the Executive Director). They provide opportunities for other offices to get involved too – through online auctions and opportunities to pledge support for the Singapore team.

This year they outdid themselves, raising S$32,000 for Mitrataa! We were so excited! Unfortunately, Bec was unable to attend at the last minute so Gemma Glynn stepped in to receive the wonderful cheque. Thanks, Gem! The money from this year will be spent on education and tuition facilities at Bal Mandir Naxal Children’s Home, in line with Wiley’s commitment to education.

Thanks so much to Eleanor and Lisa for all their wonderful work – you inspire us constantly with your passion, energy and commitment to Mitrataa. And thanks to all the Wiley team for continuing to believe in Mitrataa and our partnership with Wiley. We look forward to continuing to work with you and to updating you on the latest developments in Nepal!

Update!

It is about time to update all our wonderful supporters on our progress at Naxal Children’s Home. Apologies for the lack of postings recently – we have had our heads down and tails up for the last few months, topping it off with Dashain Celebrations recently. So, firstly, you can read our “3 Month Celebrations” here which gives you a flavour of what we’ve been focused on for the first few months. As you can see, our priorities have been nutrition, hygiene, security and education for the children.

We recently had a team from Spain visit for a month – they come every Dashain to teach the kids dance and do various activities with them. They left on Sunday after a wonderful celebration of dance and shadow puppets stories. Jose Luis, the team leader, commented on how much energy and enthusiasm have this year and that he can really see the difference in them which was lovely to hear. Thank you to the team for all your passion and energy – the kids had so much fun!

We also took 6 of our 2 year olds to the Garden of Dreams for their first outing. They loved every minute of it and were so good. It’s good to get them out of the home and into the world and we hope to organise more of these activities for them.

Lastly, many of our supporters have asked how they can help. We would love some help with fundraising and there are easy ways to do this – you could start by giving up one cup of coffee a week and encouraging 9 friends to do the same. In a year, you’ll then raise enough to cover a salary for one of our wonderful house mothers. More details by clicking on the image on the left. Or with Christmas around the corner, you could set up an Everyday Hero page and ask friends and family to donate to Mitrataa rather than buying presents. Let us know if you need any more information – we’re here to support your fundraising efforts however we can!

Thank you all for your wonderful support. We couldn’t do the work we do without you and, on behalf of the kids and the Mitrataa team, THANK YOU!