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!

Dream Catchers scholarship girls

This week I will be starting visits of our various partner organisations to meet with our Dream Catchers scholarship girls. All of these girls have now completed their end of year exams and will be eagerly awaiting their results. It is an exciting time as they are of course all hoping that they will be ‘promoted’ to the next class.

The first day of the Nepali new year (2067) is 14th April and schools will reopen not long after that. This means our partners will be furiously organising uniforms, stationery and text books for all of the almost 200 girls now receiving our support.

For our existing sponsors, don’t forget your scholarship renewals are now due!

It is at this time of year that we seek new scholarship applications and we already have a rapidly growing waiting list. So if you would like to change the life of a girl in Nepal, or you know someone who would, take a look at our website. The information is all there including the cost (just AU$320 per year) and payment options. You don’t have to pay the full amount up front, we can accept monthly instalments which are easily arranged through most banks. You can also set up a recurring monthly payment from your credit card through PayPal.

So do please get in touch if you have any questions or would like to commit to changing a young girl’s life.

For our existing sponsors, thank you all as always for your continued support!

Connecting Dreams

We are excited to announce that another new project is up and running! Connecting Dreams is a school based Information Communication Technology (ICT) program that provides access to computers and technology for schools and communities that wouldn't otherwise have it.

In August and September last year we launched computer labs in 2 government schools to act as test cases and they have been a huge success. As part of the community ownership for the project they must provide free ICT education to a certain number of young people who have not had the privilege of going to school. This type of training greatly enhances an individual's education and employment prospects in Nepal. It is a project requirement that a larger percentage of girls than boys must benefit from this free education.

We are looking to establish computer labs in additional 2 schools this year and of course this requires money! It only costs AU$7,500 to setup the full lab with 15 computers, internet access and a printer. That works out at around AU$500 per computer which is not that much when you consider the number of people in Nepal who will directly benefit from it.

More information about the project can be found on our website. As always if you are keen to contribute to this or any of our projects please get in touch.

Reasons to celebrate in 2010!

Two days before Christmas we received some fantastic news in Australia – we have finally been approved as a Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR) for gifts and donations. This means that all donations to Mitrataa over AU$2 are now tax deductible.

As many of you will know, reaching this point has been a long journey. We’d like to especially thank Freehills’ Sydney office for their pro bono support along the way.

So how do we celebrate this exciting milestone? Well 2010 also signifies the 10th anniversary of our first trip to Nepal, the trip that inspired the creation of the Foundation, so we have a number of programs planned to celebrate both events. We will also shortly be launching a fundraising competition to give all our supporters an opportunity to get involved. Stay tuned for details on this and a number of other new projects and events coming up. Our DGR status has arrived at the perfect time to help 2010 become our greatest year yet – which is just as well because our partners in Nepal have their creative juices flowing to help with more innovative and exciting new projects to help us achieve our objectives!

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!

Great things happening

There hasn't been much time for reflection during my visit to Australia but I thought I would just take a minute to put down a few of the great things that have been going on for the Foundation.

As a result of the fantastic evening Libby Hathorn hosted at her home recently I have met some more very inspiring and positive people who are now helping Mitrataa along with Libby. In particular Michelle Kline and Joanne Fedler have been so generous with their ideas and their time. Michelle works for the Randwick City Library Service and she has co-ordinated the donation of a large number of children's books from the library. We will take these books to Nepal for use in the library at the Model School. Michelle is also working with Joanne and Libby on a launch event for a documentary on Libby's recent trip to Kathmandu to introduce the 100Views Art & Literacy program there. More news on that event once details are finalised. Joanne is an author (check out her website) and she has written the most touching piece about Mitrataa and put it on her blog which you can read by clicking here.

These three women truly are inspirational to Bec and I and we want to thank them from the bottom of our hearts for their support, it really does mean a lot to us and we are so grateful.

I have spoken at a couple more Rotary club evenings and was presented with a cheque for $500.00 from the Castle Hill club last night. This was most unexpected and I must give a big "thanks" to the club and also to Rhonda Radford for introducing me to the club. Rhonda's daughter, Sarah, is one of the directors of Mitrataa and I fear she will soon be spending her days collecting donations of books, clothes and toys to be shipped to Kathmandu!

So as you can see its all systems go for Mitrataa at the moment. I have plenty more engagements in Sydney and then it won't be long before Bec and I are back in Kathmandu following up on all of the projects - exciting times!