Mitrataa's Opportunity Box

One of Mitrataa’s core responsibilities is to fill the opportunity gap for our students – research globally shows that one of the core challenges of the poverty trap is the missed opportunities to expand their knowledge and skills. One of the biggest indicators of the learning gap tends to be what happens in school holidays - students from wealthier families tend to visit new places, go to museums and experience other educational enhancement activities while students from less advantaged families tend to stay home not doing much in the holidays. Part of our role is to fill this gap for our students.

The Opportunity Box expands on and underpins in-class education, increasing the range of skills and knowledge of the students and giving them a richer tapestry on which to build.

The National Trust in the UK prepared a list of activities that they recommend all children experience before they finish school. Drawing on this list and localising it for the Nepali context, we have prepared our own Opportunity Box: a list of 15 things which we want all of our students to have experienced before they finish class 10:

1. Visit a museum
2. Visit an art gallery
3. Visit the 7 UNESCO Heritage Sites in Kathmandu Valley
4. Visit a factory
5. Hike for a day
6. Visit a farm and learn where food comes from
7. Visit Kathmandu
8. Make a speech
9. Do something that benefits something else
10. Teach a class on a topic of their choice (run a workshop)
11. Eat in a restaurant
12. Make momos
13. Take a visitor on a tour of something in their local area
14. Learn to swim
15. Go shopping for a new set of clothes they can choose themselves

This week was the annual Panauti Jatra, a 3 day chariot festival. As we have a number of students in Panauti, we decided to celebrate the Jatra with them by combining No.15 from the Opportunity Box with our Financial Literacy Project. Each of the students were given Rs 500 (around A$6.50) to spend at the festival market. They had to buy at least one practical/useful item that they need and the rest of the money could be spent however they chose but they had to plan carefully and make sure they got everything they wanted within their budget. Then they had to come back and show us the calculations for what they bought, the total they spent, and how much money they had remaining. For some of the students, they had never had money to spend themselves before and they had so much fun choosing things. 

We were really impressed with how practical they all are and how good they are at bargaining! For example, Swostika bought an umbrella and raincoat as monsoon season starts this week, Rithika bought a kurtha and some sunglasses, Ashalal bought some underwear, a wallet. some socks and a t-shirt, Uma bought a bra, a t-shirt and a doll keyring. Megha and her sister bought some clothes and then some bubbles which they used to entertain us all for the afternoon! 

Remember the beginning of a new school year . . . it's that time in Nepal!

Remember the beginning of a new school year with all its promises and opportunities – the new school shoes (not so pleasant with the resulting blisters!), the shiny new text books, the new exercise books waiting to be filled with lessons and learning. It’s the beginning of the new school year in Nepal and the kids are all settling in to their new classes. Most don’t get a new school uniform or stationery and for many students text books are something to be dreamed of.

Dream Catchers meets Dream Centres

Mitrataa is continuing our very successful Dream Catchers Scholarship Program this year but we have expanded it – we’ve put our Dream Centre life skills model into a school bag and now all of our scholarship girls get life coaching as well as their education support. There is a lack of career counselling and life skills support in schools in Nepal and as the girls we support get older, we believe that the best support we can offer them is to provide them with a tool box of skills to achieve their dreams. We did this for our Dream Centre graduates and now we are expanding it to cover all our scholarship girls.

Education is a tool to open doors

One of the most common myths in Nepal, started by parents and continued in schools, is that “Education is the key to success.” We disagree – education is a tool which helps us achieve success. WE are the key to our own success – it is our own actions and the way we take advantage of opportunities presented to us that determine our success or otherwise. We teach the children that we can help them to open doors, as education can, but that they have to themselves walk through the door and grab their dreams themselves. Through our Dream Catchers Scholarships, we open the door, and through our coaching program, we motivate and inspire the children to walk through it.

How you can help open doors

We now have 2 levels of scholarships:

1)   Standard Dream Catchers Scholarship

This is our usual model of scholarship program which covers school fees, books, stationery, uniforms and basic medical support for the student. This cost remains at $360 per year. In return, in addition to knowing you’re giving a girl a schoolbag full of life skills and opportunities as well as an education, you will also receive a photo of the lucky girl, some background information about her and her school reports so you can track her progress.

2)   Dream Catchers Hostel Scholarship

Since we had to end our Bal Mandir Naxal Children’s Home project, we wanted to continue to support as many of the children as possible. As a result, we successfully reunited 25 of the children with their families who agreed to discharge them from Bal Mandir. This is a wonderful opportunity for the children to escape the label that comes with being from a children’s home and allows them to be a part of their extended families again. In return, we agreed to continue supporting their education in the same schools to minimise disruption to the children’s education. We enrolled the children into the school hostels, so they live at school during the term time.

This costs more as it is residential so includes their food, lodging, extra tuition and other costs – basically it is the entire cost of taking care of the children for the year. The cost of these scholarships is $2,000 per year per child and we have 25 children who need support. You’ll receive the satisfaction of knowing you helped reunite a child with their family and supporting their education, as well as photos, background information, and report updates on their progress. We have a number of options for these scholarships:

·         Individual sponsor - $2,000 – this is obviously the best option for us as it keeps our admin of managing numerous sponsors down and covers all of the girl’s costs. It can be paid in instalments over the year;

·         “Circle of friends” sponsorship - $2,000 - some people are putting together a group of friends and raising the complete amount as a “circle of friends” sponsorship. We have seen a number of people organise a monthly get together with friends at someone’s house (taking turns around the group) and they donate the cost of the meal they would usually have eaten out to the scholarship fund to support a girl. Over the year, many groups have found they actually raise enough to sponsor 2 children! Not only does this support a girl’s future and education, it also gives you an excuse to catch up with friends for a good cause once a month!

·         Group sponsorship - $360 each - otherwise, if people want to stick with their $360 a year amount, we can put sponsors together so each girl has a couple of sponsors to cover the costs.

Don’t forget for our Aussie sponsors, this amount is tax deductible – so with FYE just around the corner, please consider giving the gift of an education to a child in Nepal. You’ll be changing someone’s world!

Inspiring Children's Day full of excitement, creativity, talent and the launch of "Sangita's Singing" children's book

The Mitrataa family celebrated Children’s Day this year in a style core to what we do – with creativity and the incredible talents of our children as the focus. We hosted 3 wonderful programs at our Wiley Dream Centre in collaboration with Dream Catchers Nepal, our local partner. The theme – “Our nation, our pride” – inspired a lot of positive celebration of the great talents and beauty of Nepal.
 

1)    Inspirations Awards – “Celebrating creative thinking in Nepal’s children” – we invited all our partner schools to participate in this art, poetry and story writing competition and we had entries from 15 of the invited schools which was wonderful. There is some real talent in our group with some very impressive writing and drawing. The English poetry and story writing competition was judged by Libby Hathorn, well-known Australian children’s author. The art competition was judged by Barbara Jones, and Australian artist and art teacher. The Nepali story writing and poetry competitions were judged by Saroj Dhungana, Nepali poet and journalist. Entries were judged in advance and prizes were awarded on the day. We plan to publish a book with the winning entries as a celebration of the creativity of the children. The winners were invited to special workshops the next day hosted by Libby and Barbara to continue their creative journeys.

 

2)  Mitrataa’s Got Talent – A dance and drama competition amongst our partner schools really showcased our children’s talents! After a fierce competition, our judges, Ajit Aryal (director of Achel theatre) for the drama and Birendra tamanag (dance teacher) for the dance, announced the winners. The acts all really brought our theme to life and our visiting guest judges got a true taste of Nepal’s talent!

 

3)  Launch of “Sangita’s Singing” children’s book – Libby Hathorn is an award winning Australian children’s author who has written over 50 books! She first visited Nepal with Mitrataa in 2008 to run the 100 Views program at Riviera. During that trip, she was inspired to write a story about a girl from the village who comes to Kathmandu to study and her journey towards literacy through the challenges of being bullied and a long way from home. The story was illustrated by Bandana Tulachan, an up and coming Nepali illustrator who is currently completing her Bachelors in Fine Arts from Kathmandu University Center for Art and Design. After a long journey, the book is finally complete and was formally launched on Children’s Day at our Nepali pride celebration. It looks fantastic and we are so excited. Two students read an extract from the book, supported by 2 girls acting out a scene at the launch.

 

     Libby has very generously donated all profits from the sale of the book to support Mitrataa’s work. Sangita’s Singing will soon be available through Mitrataa’s website – www.mitrataa.org – for A$25 (+P&H) so please order your copy for a loved one this Christmas and enjoy the wonderful story while knowing you are also supporting the dreams of the girls like Sangita who are supported by Mitrataa in Nepal. We will also be selling copies in Nepal and working with schools here to use the story as an educational tool as it covers so many wonderful themes – the importance of education, rural v city life, bullying, using your strengths to overcome challenges. Thank you so much to Libby who is a great supporter of Mitrataa. We are incredibly grateful to have you as part of the Mitrata family.

 

So huge thanks to our judges for their time and energy and especially to Libby and Barbara for travelling so far and for running the workshops on Saturday too. Thanks to all the schools and the kids who participated in a fantastic celebration of what is some amazing about Nepal – the level of talent and passion was wonderful!

And the biggest thanks to the Mitrataa team for all your hard work in organising this fantastic day which gave us an opportunity to showcase the work we do and the talent of the kids we have the privilege of working with. Without your hard work, none of it would have been possible. While every member of the team was involved, special thanks must go to Bipana and Ganga for leading the organisation for the Inspirations Award and to Subina for leading the organisation of the Mitrataa’s Got Talent competition. Thank you so much.

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!

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!

St Cath's and Mitrataa in the Sun Herald

There was an independent schools section in last Sunday's (31st July) Sun Herald and it included an article on St Catherine's in Waverley and in particular their work with Mitrataa.

The school has sent a number of groups to Nepal so far with more in the planning. The trips always provide an amazing opportunity for the girls to see a different side to the world and I'm sure they always come home changed forever.

Our thanks go to St Cath's and in particular Sarah Hatch, the teacher responsible for the service program and organising the trips, and for the wonderful write-up in the paper.

You can click on the image below to enlarge it to read, or email me and I will gladly send you a copy of the article.

First ever inter-Dream Centre Quiz Contest!

On Friday, 8th July, all the girls from our 4 Dream Centres descended on Bal Mandir for our first ever inter-Dream Centre Trivia Quiz Competition. Each Centre selected 4 competitors to represent them. With Diwakar (facilitator in Baneshwor Centre) and Kamal (facilitator in our Wiley Dream Centre) playing Quiz Masters for the day and Bipana from the new Gyaneshwor Wiley Women’s Dream Centre playing the role of score keeper, the day got off to a great start. Cheered on by their fellow Dream Centre girls, the teams battled it out on questions ranging from Nepali history to child rights.

After a close competition, the MLC Dream Centre won followed by the Gyaneshwor Wiley Women’s Dream Centre team. Well done to all the girls! They all played very well.

It was great to get all the girls from the 4 centres together to swap stories and to meet new friends. We hope to make this a regular event. Thanks to Diwakar for taking the lead on this and to all the facilitators for their organisation and participation. A great example of the power of strong team work! 

Bal Mandir Revisited – Be careful what you wish for!

As many of you know, we had to cancel our planned project to take over the management of Bal Mandir Children’s Home late last year and we were very disappointed as it was a fantastic opportunity for both Mitrataa and for the children and staff at Bal Mandir, as well as for the head organisation, Nepal Children’s Organisation. We continued to work closely with the 40 Dream Catchers’ girls at Bal Mandir, the Project Snow Leopard girls and the Mitrataa Rising Stars Child Club, including on their recent Nepali New Years Eve Party to support them as best we could.

Well, very unexpectedly but excitingly, NCO approached us in late April with a revised proposal which overcame our major concerns when we walked away from the project earlier. So officially from 1 May 2011, Mitrataa took over the management of Bal Mandir, Naxal Children’s Home, with 250 children (aged from 15 days to 16 years) for 5 years with the view to set up a sustainable model and a world class children’s home.

We are under no illusion that this will be a challenging project but we are very excited about the possibilities. Rather than feeling despair at the challenges and lack of progress for the children, we are now able to really focus on the possibilities and the opportunities ahead to create real, sustainable change, not just for the current 250 children and 35 staff but for future generations as well as for the children in NCO’s 10 other homes and potentially for the 600 other children’s homes in Nepal. The opportunity is fantastic and we are honoured and humbled to be able to take on this challenge.

The project is a very strong fit with Mitrataa’s core values of creating sustainable models to development through a train-the-trainer approach. We will also be able to use our learnings from our existing projects such as our Dream Centres project – we will be setting up a Dream Centre within Bal Mandir – our Daisy Chains program which we will be running for the house mothers and our model school approach where we will be using our experience and trainers to help train tutors and other teachers at Bal Mandir.


Since the handover on 1 May, we have been busy with a number of exciting initiatives:

·         Clean Up Day! - As any of you who have visited Bal Mandir know, it needs a bit of love and attention! It is housed in a beautiful old Rana Palace and is an incredible building. But it has been left uncared for for a very long time and it is very run down. So we had a huge clean up day on which we scrubbed the place from top to bottom – every inch has been scrubbed, debugged and disinfected. The campaign was led by the Child Club, in particular by Asbini who was boss for the day. Asbini, Saraswoti and Sabitri Thapa in particular showed amazing leadership skills in organising everyone. The kids all got involved and were already well into the clean up when we arrived having been up since the crack of dawn! The house mothers were all cleaning madly too. We definitely have a long way to go with getting the place clean and tidy but the best thing was that the kids and the house mothers all got in and were so excited to be taking pride in their home. The day created a real sense of community and we were so grateful that some of our core supporters attended – Dinesh from Creating Possibilities (supported by Bruce and Susan Keenan’s Himalayan Children’s Charities) sent his team of children who had all lived at Bal Mandir at one stage, the girls from NGCC who all grew up at Bal Mandir and moved to NGCC when they finished school came, and Arun, a wonderful woman who was adopted from Bal Mandir 20 years ago and who is back at the moment visiting and providing support to Bal Mandir came with a crowd of people. We also had a couple of Aussies who joined us as well as our great volunteer, Fleur (more on her later!). It was a fantastic day, the energy was amazing and I was so proud of everyone. We had a party in the evening with lots of dancing and singing and celebrations too. We have a long way to go with the cleaning but it’s a start!

·         Listening and Learning – We didn’t want to make too many changes to start but we wanted to really listen and learn from the staff, the children and other stakeholders first. So we have been spending time one-on-one with all of the house mothers and other staff. This has been a fantastic opportunity and we are very grateful that they have been so supportive and open to Mitrataa’s management of the home. As we finish these meetings, we will be preparing our strategic plan to move things forward.

·         Establishing the Management Committee – As this project is a 5 year plan and sustainability is at its core, it is very important that we work closely with NCO. So we have established a Management Committee with 2 NCO members and 3 Mitrataa members to help us share experiences and to guide the overall strategy of the project. The day to day management, responsibility and costs of the home rest with Mitrataa. We are really pleased with NCO’s willingness to listen and learn in the initial stages of the project and we are confident of being able to deliver our objectives with the support of the NCO board.

·         Schools – The new school session started in Nepal in April and due to lack of funds, many of the kids were not enrolled in school or didn’t have their uniforms and books so weren’t attending school. We have now resolved this and all the kids are happily in school and studying hard! We are putting in place a tutoring/homework system to ensure they get the support they need to really achieve their goals in their studies.

·         Nutrition – Milk, eggs, meat and fruit had been removed from the menu for the last several months due to funding issues. The first thing we did was reinstate these very important items onto the menu as the kids need these to grow big and strong! I have never seen 250 kids so excited as when they found they had an egg for breakfast last week! Their smiles were enormous!

So it’s exciting times ahead! To all of you who offered to help us fundraise for this huge project last year, thank you. We now really need you! Feeding and educating and housing 250 kids and 35 staff costs a lot of money and we are about to kick off a huge fundraising drive. So please get involved and support us as we begin to really change the lives of these kids. There will soon be a fundraising info pack available on our website which will have a bit more information for you and how your money will be spent.

On behalf of the wonderful kids at Bal Mandir, thank you so much in advance for your support and we look forward to updating you on our progress! 

St Cath's models leadership and motivation in the Dream Centres

From Bec in Kathmandu:


Our friends from St Catherine’s in Waverley sent another wonderful group of 12 girls from years 10 and 11 to spend a week in our Dream Centres recently. The girls were accompanied by teachers Sarah Hatch (who was returning for the second year) and Julie Park (who was on her first trip) and by Mitrataa board member, Sarah Bartram. After a few days trekking, the girls went straight to work attending our Dream Centre Picnic for all our recent and past Dream Centre graduate girls. We had almost 100 girls on the day which got off to a great start with lots of games organised by the St Cath’s girls. We then had a slight mishap as a huge storm rolled in and we sheltered under the marquee. The girls engaged in some singing games as the mud rolled down the hill and through our sheltering place. As the roof collapsed for the second time, we decided it was time to move everyone to the buses where we continued with some singing including the teaching of Home Among the Gum Trees and some Nepali classics. After our improvised bus party, the rain cleared and we all headed back for some well-deserved lunch followed by an afternoon of ball games. At 3pm everyone loaded onto the buses exhausted but having made some great new friends and had lots of fun. These picnics, as well as being a great opportunity for our girls to interact with the Australian volunteers and practise their English, are a rare day for the girls to just be kids and run around and enjoy themselves. Many of the girls in our Dream Centres are domestic workers who do not often get a chance to relax and enjoy themselves like this.

The team from St Cath’s then ran a workshop on leadership in each of our 3 Dream Centres. This is one of the most difficult life skills for the girls to grasp so it was fantastic for them to have some interesting and varied new activities to practise with. The girls started with a game of “Guess the Leader” before brainstorming leadership qualities and examples of great leaders. They then identified their own strengths and leadership qualities to share with the group.  They then settled in for some reading aloud before finishing with a game of Human Knots which is always popular.

On the Saturday, we held a combined session for all our most recent graduates from the 3 Centres at the Wiley Dream Centre in Chandol on the very important topic of Motivation, another one of our crucial life skills. Watching both the St Cath’s girls and our Dream Centre girls grow in their confidence over the week together was inspiring and is what I love the most about these programs. Some fantastic friendships were made and there were some tears as the groups farewelled each other.

For their last day, St Cath’s group hosted a trivia competition for classes 1-10 at Riviera, our Model School, to free the teachers for a training session (more on this shortly). It was a good opportunity for the volunteers to see a different type of school where students’ English and general knowledge is far better than those in the Dream Centres who are studying in government schools which teach in Nepali. Their energy on this last challenging day was fantastic.

We always enjoy having the St Cath’s girls here and this year was no exception. Their energy and enthusiasm for trying new things and dealing with difficult situations not only inspired me but really impacted the Dream Centre girls. Thanks to Sarah Hatch and Julie Park for leading the group and to the girls for their wonderful work. We look forward to continuing to grow our relationship with St Cath’s.


More photos can be found on our facebook page.  

It’s not only our Nepali girls who achieve their dreams!

From Bec in Kathmandu...


Tori McCarten and Amelia Baker from Lithgow, NSW, are true leaders – they were inspired by a challenge I set when I gave a presentation at Women’s College last May. I challenged all the girls present to follow their dreams and to step forward and take action to change the world. By the time Tori and Amelia had reached home on the train, they had made the decision to come to Nepal and recently they took 2 weeks out of their busy Year 12 schedule to come to Nepal and work with Mitrataa and fulfilling that dream. They were accompanied by Jo Reeves. The trio began by attending the Dream Centre graduations where they taught the girls Incy Wincy Spider which was a popular choice! They spent some time with the girls at Bal Mandir teaching them volley ball, they stepped in to help facilitate the Fashion Workshops when our fashion expert fell ill.

Then their true colours shone through when they ran 3 workshops for a mixed group of our girls – 3 girls from each of our Dream Centres, 3 of our Project Snow Leopard girls and around 8 of the girls who are studying at Riviera, our Model School. The workshops were run at Riviera for 3 half days. The first was on “Accepting and Understanding Yourself” and the girls learned about how to respect and like yourself for your star qualities. The next workshop was based around team work and, with a game of basketball and writing of poems, the group really cemented some new friendships. The final workshop was “Creative Story Telling” and the girls wrote some fantastic stories in groups, practising their teamwork skills from the previous workshop. We’ll be publishing some of these stories on our website shortly. All of our Mitrataa girls loves the workshops and came away with new confidence, new inspiration and having had a lot of fun!

I am really proud of Tori and Amelia for following their dream. They definitely faced some challenges in Kathmandu but they really stepped up and I know they had a huge impact on a lot of people during their time over here. Thank you, guys. You were amazing! Keep dreaming big!

 

Dream Centre Graduations Galore!

Posted by Bec from Kathmandu...


I love Graduation Days at the Dream Centres – the excitement of the girls, the sharing of their experiences, their dreams for the future and the celebratory songs and dances never fail to put a smile on my face and this latest batch was no exception. The fifth batch from our Baneshwor Dream Centre graduated on Thursday 31st March. Joined by volunteers Tori, Amelia and Jo, I was inspired by the energy and enthusiasm of the girls. There were 2 highlights for me of this graduation – the drama which the girls did on “Appreciating Differences”, one of the core Life Skills we teach them. It was about a disabled girl who was not in the Dream Centre and was teased by the other children. Some of the girls stood up for her. The girls ended the drama by requesting that Mitrataa ensure that we include disabled girls in our next batch to lead by example. I love this challenge to us! We definitely have some budding Bollywood stars in this batch too. The other highlight was watching the girls teach the volunteers a dance. Their patience and energy was infectious. The Australian girls then taught the girls Incy Wincy Spider with the actions and I was amazed at how quickly they picked it up. Credit to our facilitators for this Centre, Bipana and Diwakar, who have done a wonderful job with this batch.

This was a hard act to follow but the third batch of girls from the Wiley Dream Centre did a wonderful job at their graduation on Friday 1st April. This was the weakest batch of students we have taken into our Centres and our facilitators at this Centre, Ganga and Kamal, did an amazing job with building up the confidence of these girls. Some of the girls who stood and shared their experiences were so shy when they first joined the Centre that it was a while before they spoke at all. Now they stood in front of their family and friends and spoke with a new found belief in themselves and their dreams for the future, sharing the lessons they had learned and the skills they would take forward into their lives. They can now do anything!

The very first batch of graduates from the MLC Dream Centre really went out with a bang at their graduation day on Wednesday 6th April. This group has an amazing energy and passion for their futures and their graduation reflected this with songs, dance and expressions of gratitude – one of the core Life Skills we focus on in the Centres. Ruby and Sabita, our facilitators in this Centre, have had a huge impact on these girls – from teaching them meditation skills to help them get control of their minds, to inspiring one of the girls to sing a solo at the graduation ceremony, the difference in the girls is wonderful. Most of the girls in this Centre are domestic workers and it was lovely to see several of their guardians/employers attend the ceremony, 2 of them sharing their experiences of the changes in the girls’ behaviour and approach to school since they joined the Dream Centre program.

Welcoming these new graduates to the network of Dream Centre Graduates was a pleasure! I look forward to keeping in touch with them as they visit the Centre every month to share their progress towards their dreams. Keep dreaming, girls!

Sincere thanks to Wiley and MLC for sponsoring a Dream Centre. You have changed the lives of so many girls already, with many more to come!

Our next batches of girls will start at the Centres in late April. 

2010 Annual Report Online

Just a quick update to let you know our Annual Report for 2010 is now available on our website. Last year was another big one for us and it is exciting to see the progress Mitrataa has made in impacting the lives of women and girls in Nepal.

Bec is back in Kathmandu now hosting volunteers and a school group, and getting things organised for the new school year. Updates on these happenings will be coming in the next few weeks...

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! 

  

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.