Child Club Achievement

One of the projects our team in Nepal have been working on recently is the establishment of a child club at the children’s home at Bal Mandir.

The club meets fortnightly on Saturdays and is a way to engage the older girls in the home and teach them about leadership, community and team building. Through the club we help the girls to devise and lead a number of fun and useful activities in their local area.

Recently, the club embarked on the ambitious undertaking of cleaning up all of the rubbish in the backyard at Bal Mandir. Bec had introduced them to the concept of an Emu Parade whereby everyone forms a long line and together they comb the area with each person responsible for picking up the rubbish in front of them. The child club decided this was exactly what Bal Mandir needed so they rallied an impressive team of 55 children and even 4 staff members joined in!

If you have visited Nepal and seen the amount of rubbish strewn everywhere you will appreciate the challenge the girls had set themselves. And of course such a program would be futile if the children were not taught to use the rubbish bins placed around the home. So first the girls gave a short talk to the children on the importance of placing rubbish in the bins and taking pride in the appearance of their home. Once everyone agreed and committed to keeping the place tidy, the Emu Parade began.

The children were given gloves and plastic garbage bags and there was a prize for the team who collected the most rubbish. There were lolly wrappers, plastic bags, bricks(!), broken toys, food scraps everywhere but the team collected it all. By the end of the day the yard looked like a new place and the children were rightfully very proud of their achievement.

We visited the home last week and whilst there were a few wrappers lying around the backyard still looked pristine compared with the front area which is like a public park. We are so proud of all the children and especially proud of the girls in the child club who led this fantastic initiative. Hopefully their example will spread to their neighbours and local community and we can see more of this type of activity in the future! 

  

Good news to start 2011

We work very closely with our staff in Nepal to help them set objectives in their work that both stretch their skills and also enable them to focus on the things they love. Two of our staff members had been set the task of starting a good news newsletter - something to focus on the positive rather than the negative that 'normal' news promotes.


Chetana and Diwakar have come up with the first edition of 'Good News' and they have done a fantastic job! You can read the newsletter below or I would be happy to email you a copy. We hope it encourages all of our women and girls here and in our wider network to focus on the many wonderful and inspiring good news stories that are happening around us every day.


Thanks Chetana and Diwakar!

Seasons Greetings from Mitrataa

Thank you to all of our supporters, sponsors, donors, volunteers, staff and well-wishers for your contributions to an amazing 2010!

Best wishes for the holiday season and for a happy, healthy and prosperous 2011.

From the Mitrataa family.

Project Snow Leopard part 3

Once back in Kathmandu we had two more workshops with the Project Snow Leopard girls at Bal Mandir. Linda reviewed their photos from Pokhara and discussed some of the best ones with the group. The girls always love to see their work displayed on the big projector screen!

The last outing for the girls was a day trip to Panauti, a traditional old Newar village about an hour from Kathmandu. There we took the girls on a walk around the town to see the sights including some stunning old temples, pokey little cobbled alleyways, and lots of ducks, chickens and pigs. Panauti sits on the confluence of two rivers so there were lots of photo opportunities there too with many people bathing and doing their washing on the banks.

Throughout the course of this trip we had also assigned ‘official photographer’ positions to each of the girls at the various programs that were held. The last of these was the Daisy Chains Women’s Project conference and picnic, also held in Panauti. Three of the Snow Leopard girls joined us for the day and their brief was to take lots of photos that captured the mood of the day and ‘told the story’ of the women. In addition to this the girls did a fantastic job of assisting with translation work during the formal parts of the program.

That concluded phase two of Project Snow Leopard and it was fantastic to see not only the development of the girls’ photography skills but also their growth in confidence, communication and leadership. We are planning the next set of workshops for March/April next year and the girls are already excited about Linda’s next visit!

We are presently working with the assistance of John Wiley & Sons on gift cards using the girls’ photos which we will be selling as a fundraiser. Also, as the girls continue to amass a very impressive collection of photos we will be starting work on a book highlighting their achievements so look out for that late next year or early 2012.

Our thanks as always to Linda for all of the time and energy she has put into the project.

  

Project Snow Leopard part 2

Following an amazing morning of mountain views at Sarangkot, we took the Project Snow Leopard girls to the lake at Pokhara for an adventure they could never have imagined – catching a row boat to the other side of the lake! Swimming and water sports are not common leisure activities in Nepal so many of the girls were quite daunted by the prospect of venturing out onto the beautiful lake in a small wooden boat. However once out on the lake most of the girls were able to relax and enjoy the amazing views back to shore and to the hills and mountains behind. Pokhara is a popular adventure sport destination and from the lake we were also able to enjoy the views of some crazy people para-hawking and hang-gliding from nearby hills!

After around half an hour on the water all 4 boats landed on the opposite shore. It was then time for the real stress to begin as we had to trek up a fairly steep and rocky track for about an hour to reach the top of the hill. We were however, rewarded at the top with stunning views over the lake, the Pokhara township and surrounding hills. We could even see back across the valley to Sarangkot where we had been that morning!

In addition to the views, the top of this hill was home to the World Peace Pagoda – a beautiful big pagoda built by the Japanese a few years ago. It was the perfect location for more photos and some group shots to commemorate our trip.

By now the light was fading and it was time to return to our guest house for some well earned dinner and an early night. It had been a fantastic day both for the girls and for us.

The following morning we had one more surprise in store for the girls. They thought they were getting on the bus and going straight back to Kathmandu but we planned a quick stop at another of Pokhara’s famous sights – Devi’s Falls. This is a waterfall with a small blow hole but made famous for the story that a Swiss couple were bathing in a rock pool on the edge only to be washed away during a sudden gush of water. The girls were thrilled to see it as they had been disappointed that they thought they had missed out.

With this final burst of excitement it was now really time to head back to Kathmandu.

More photos from the trip can be found on our facebook page.

  

Project Snow Leopard part 1

The beginning of November saw Linda join us in Kathmandu for phase 2 of Project Snow Leopard. The 10 girls from Bal Mandir were very excited to be expanding their knowledge of photography as well as getting numerous opportunities to refine their skills.

First up was a workshop in Kathmandu where Linda gave the girls a coffee table book she’d had made showcasing their photos. The girls were stunned to see their work in print! This workshop also gave the girls a chance to update all of us on the work they had been doing since last time. They had been given a number of guest photographer assignments for major festivals etc which they loved. We also spent some time planning the Pokhara trip which was already causing great excitement amongst the group.

Two days later it was off to Pokhara in a bus full of very excited girls. With almost a full day of traveling behind us, the first night was spent with Linda giving a workshop on the landscape setting on a camera and also use of tripods. These things were critical as we were leaving to go to Sarangkot, a high lookout point, first thing the next morning…

At 5am we headed off through the dark and quiet streets of Pokhara for the lookout point at Sarangkot. Walking up the trail to the lookout we were greeted with a few glimpses of some very close snow-capped mountains, the Himalayas. The girls were squealing with delight and any ill effects of the early rise quickly dissipated. We rushed on until we reached our final destination on the roof of a small café. The girls set up the tripods and we all eagerly waited for the first rays of sunlight to appear and land on the white snow of mountains including Annapurna I (8,091m and 10^th highest in the world), Machapuchare (6,993m and famously known as ‘fishtail’), Dhaulagiri (8,167m and 7^th highest in the world) and Manaslu (8,163m and 8^th highest in the world).

Well as anyone who has seen this view will tell you, it is truly breathtaking. Although there was a little cloud blocking some of the mountains we still had some amazing scenes of them as well as the lake and neighbouring hills. The girls went into photo overdrive and their enthusiasm and excitement was contagious. As the sun rose and the air warmed up the clouds moved around revealing different peaks and aspects of the range, presenting even more opportunities for some great shots.

We were back at our guest house by 8:30am, ready for some breakfast and invigorated and wide awake from our morning experience. After breakfast the girls spent some quiet time in the garden writing in their journals. We then spent a fun filled hour playing some crazy team games with them, their energy was limitless!

To be continued…

Visit our facebook page for more photos taken by our director, Sarah Johnstone.

Quick update

Just a quick post to let you know I am leaving Kathmandu and heading back to Sydney today. The last 3 months have been amazing with so many visitors, volunteers, great events and progress on all of our projects.


There will be plenty of blogs in the coming weeks to bring you up to date on all of the news so stay tuned...