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! 

Thanks for volunteering Amy!

Amy Valender has recently completed a 3 month program working as a volunteer for us in Kathmandu. Amy is a nutritionist from the UK and came to know about Mitrataa through Bec when they both worked for Cadbury. Volunteering was something Amy had always wanted to do and nutrition is an area that needs a lot of support in Nepal so it was a perfect match!


We kept Amy extremely busy for the 3 months covering a variety of projects including:

• teaching English, Health and Science at our Model School;
• working with the staff in the Model School's hostel to ensure the boarding students are being fed healthy, nutritious food every meal of the day;
• running an English speaking program for some of our Dream Catchers Scholarship girls who had been struggling with their English studies;
• tutoring the girls attending our Dream Centres in English, Health, Science and also leading them in some art and craft activities and life skills programs;
• running some activities with the girls from the Project Snow Leopard program;
• working with girls at the children's home at Bal Mandir to establish a Child Club; and
• observing and advising management and staff of the children's home at Bal Mandir on healthy, nutritious and affordable dietary options for feeding the 210 children living there.

The feedback we have received from our partners, staff and of course the girls in Nepal has been overwhelming and Amy obviously made a huge impact on many people's lives. For this we are very thankful and do hope Amy might decide to return one day soon...


For anyone interested in sharing some of your skills and experience with the women and girls in Nepal and in return experiencing a piece of life that will change your outlook forever, email us.

Thank you so much Amy!

Wine Tasting Fundraiser

Last Saturday (24^th July) our good friend Libby Hathorn hosted a wine tasting fundraiser at her home in Sydney. On a cold evening we enjoyed the company of around 40 people who came to enjoy a selection of wines, a delicious meal and some fundraising for Mitrataa.

The evening started with everyone mingling with a glass of wine and some canapés – at this point I must thank Nell, from Lickie Lea’s catering, who provided the most amazing food for the evening! This was followed by a short welcome from Libby and then Bec and I had the chance to give everyone a quick update on our projects in Nepal as well as sharing initial plans for our newest project – taking over the management of a children’s home in Kathmandu where 210 children live! (Formal announcements on the details of that exciting new project coming in September.)  

It was then time for the serious business of the wine tasting. 5 wines had been chosen and we were guided through the tasting by friends of the group, Isabelle and Mark. We enjoyed a taste of Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir and Shiraz. All present really got into the tasting with some bizarre comments on the flavours and smells being detected in the wines, perhaps a little too much wine had been sampled?! People were then able to place orders for the wines with a portion of the takings being donated to Mitrataa.

Mark then took control of the floor to auction a painting which had been very generously donated by Sydney artist, Brenda Humble. Bidding was furious and the work eventually went under the hammer for $850 – all of which was donated to Mitrataa!

This concluded the formal part of the evening and meant people could then disperse to enjoy their dinner. We had set up a wall containing bricks that people could buy or sponsor for different amounts to contribute to our projects in Nepal. This raised a lot of interest and helped collect more donations for the Foundation.

The evening raised around $3,000 in donations to Mitrataa which is a fantastic effort and will go a long way in helping with our efforts to improve the lives of Nepal’s women and girls.

We must thank Libby for her immense generosity and support in organising and hosting this event, it was a wonderful night that was I am sure enjoyed by all who attended. Thanks must also go to Nell, Pat, Isabelle, Mark and anyone else I may have forgotten(!) who helped make the night such a huge success! Of course thanks also go to everyone who attended and were so generous with their support and donations, it will make a huge difference.

Our first Summit!

Yesterday Bec and I had the great privilege of hosting the inaugural Mitrataa Summit in Kathmandu. The event was a full day mix of team building activities, workshops and brainstorming sessions attended by 13 representatives from our various partner organisations and projects.

The day started with each participant being given a chocolate – either Freddo, Caramello, or Strawberry Freddo (thanks Cadbury!). Depending on their choice they had to either share something about which they were passionate, someone they admire and why, or 3 things for which they were grateful. As this was the first time many of the attendees were meeting each other, this activity was a great ice-breaker as well as setting a positive tone for the day.

It was then time for the serious work of the day with Bec taking the group through an interactive workshop on project management and in particular, preparing project proposals. Some of our partners obviously already had some experience in this field whilst for others it was the first time they had been exposed to these concepts. Each person had to progress through the workshop by preparing their own ‘make believe’ proposal and it was interesting to see some of the wonderful and unusual projects people were creating! We had projects covering everything from organic tea farming to micro-hydro-power schemes to after-school support for students struggling with Maths and English.

There was a quick break for a delicious dahl bhat lunch in the middle before we continued into the early afternoon completing the proposals. By the end of the session each participant had created a complete draft proposal for their dream project. Many of them had even included a proposed budget and timeline!

Next we turned our minds to a quick brain-storming session on some of the challenges being faced in relation to collection of report cards from schools hosting our Dream Catchers Scholarship girls. This was a great opportunity for partners from different parts of Kathmandu and its surrounds to share their ideas on how best to manage the program. It was really rewarding for us to observe new networks of support being formed amongst like-minded individuals.

The next session was another brain-storming around sourcing suitable candidates for the Defying Gravity program – a new initiative to provide scholarships and support for extraordinary women to realise their dream business. It was agreed that as a concept this was quite new in Nepal and so the first step would be to host a number of workshops on dreaming, ambitions and passion. Each of our partner organizations will be sourcing women they see as potentially being suitable for the program and we expect by the end of the workshops to have determined the first recipients of the scholarships!

After a quick afternoon tea break it was time for the final session of the day which was a group discussion regarding options for our Dream Catchers scholarship girls once they have completed school. We have one such girl this year with 5 more currently in their last year of school now so it is an issue we need to be prepared for. There was an amazing amount of suggestions on what we could do and by the end of the discussion we had a long list of action points and plans to put in place. Suffice to say, the girls will not be forgotten and we will be creating opportunities and ways to support them for as long as they need it!

As the summit drew to a close it was so inspiring and encouraging to see all of the people we work with in Nepal working together to create solutions and plans for our future work. The day was a real affirmation of the individuals and organisations we work with and we both felt so proud of all we as a team have achieved in the last few years.

Quick Project Update

Hard to believe I have already been in Kathmandu for 8 days but time flies here when working and especially when you don't stop for weekends! The trip has been extremely productive and I am so excited about the work we will be doing this year. Below I just wanted to share a quick overview of the things I have been discussing with out partners and the plans that are being made.

Dream Catchers Scholarships

Whilst exact figures have not been set (as this of course depends on our sponsors!) we will be increasing the number of scholarships being offered with all of our partners. This means more girls will be going to school this year in Kathmandu, Patan, Bhaktapur, Panauti, Sanga and Phulbari!

Daisy Chains

As all of our existing groups are now moving on to start their businesses we will be looking to start the education component for new groups of women. It is looking likely that this year we will be going beyond Kathmandu to introduce the program to some groups of women in Phulbari and Panauti as well!

Dream Centres

We have narrowed our options down to 2 locations for the first Dream Centres, one in Kathmandu and one in Lalitpur. We are working with local community management to secure their support for the Centres and expect this to be finalised by the end of March. We have selected 4 tutors for the Centres and they are doing their training at the moment. In fact I will be working with them on a workshop exploring different teaching methods tomorrow! The timeline for the first Centre to be open by the end of April is looking good.

Child Care Centre - Phulbari

One of the new projects we are planning is the opening of a child care centre for the women in Phulbari. At present these women are carrying their babies on their backs whilst they work in the fields and on construction sites - not terribly safe or ideal for the babies and not the best way for the women to work either. In conjunction with a local women's group we are finalising plans for how the centre will be run including staffing, facilities, food for the children etc. This should make an amazing contribution to the village as well as providing a base for us to introduce our Daisy Chains project there.

Model School

There are some great plans in the coming year for Riviera. We will be running a poetry and art competition with them for all schools in the Kathmandu Valley area, this provides a fantastic opportunity to promote the arts and creativity to a much wider audience! We will also be increasing the exchange programs the kids at Riviera enjoy with school children in Australia and further afield. The first of these will be a photo essay of their school and local area that will be exchanged with students from Eden Marine High School on the south coast of New South Wales.

This is just a quick look at some of the many things we are planning for this year and I look forward to sharing more of our work with you as it begins to take shape!

Update on the situation in Nepal

As Bec and I pack our things for another visit to Nepal we have been reading some news articles that have left us feeling somewhat ambivalent about the situation there. The maoist-led government have been in power now for around 8 months and last week saw the launch of their very ambitious campaign to provide basic literacy skills to the 8 million adults in Nepal who currently are unable to read or write. It is a huge undertaking and involves thousands of volunteers working as teachers. The project has not been without hiccups as there has still been the problem of getting the necessary text books to the more remote regions of the country. This is a problem that occurs every year with school text books as schools outside the major urban areas often have to wait half the year to receive the curriculum and books for that year!

To the government's credit measures were put in place to avoid such a delay with providing the literacy text books but recent severe power shortages have foiled their plans. For the past couple of weeks most people across Nepal had to endure 16 hours without power each day, even in built up city areas. Power was only available between 10pm and 4am each day. As you can imagine, this makes doing business and most aspects of daily life nearly impossible. For a country with access to the world's largest natural water source, it is very disappointing that more has not been done to harness this resource for 'clean' electricity. Unfortunately with the problem now so severe there is talk that Nepal will start importing even more diesel-powered generators which sounds like a good idea to solve the problem except that the country typically has trouble maintaining a sufficient supply of diesel and other fuel to operate such generators as well as for motor transport. This means we are soon likely to see more access to electricity each day but little or no access to fuel, meaning long queues at fuel stations, and more difficulty for those who rely on transport for their livelihoods.

There is a real sense at the moment that the government are simply juggling problems to appease different groups for a short period at a time. We were heartened to hear yesterday that power cuts have now been reduced to only 10 hours per day due to an increase in snow melt from the Himalayas flowing into the rivers that service the hydro-electric power stations. But this will not stop the increasing dependence on fossil fuels for industry to be able to move forward. It is clear the challenges facing the new government are immense and we remain hopeful that they can start to deliver solutions before the country turns once again to violence and instability.

The BBC regularly reports on news from Nepal and you can find these stories by clicking here. In particular, you can read the story about the power situation by clicking here. Also, for an interesting look at the views of some Nepalese people from all walks of life click here.

Bec and I will just be in Kathmandu for 10 days and during that time we will be checking up on all of the Foundation's projects as well as having some meetings to plan the launch of more exciting new projects this year. So stay tuned for more on these in the coming weeks.

In Nepal Again!

Bec and I have just arrived back in Kathmandu and will be here for about a month. During that time we will be checking on all of the Foundation’s projects as well as launching an exciting and fun new initiative – more to come on that soon.

We will be visiting many of the girls studying in school thanks to Dream Catchers scholarships and also collecting their first term school reports. If you are sponsoring one of these lucky girls expect to receive a school report soon!

We will also be checking in on the various groups of women studying and working through our Daisy Chains project. There are around 280 women participating in this project at the moment and our goal is to reach around 500 so it’s a great start but we still have some work to do.

I hope this posting finds everyone happy and healthy in whatever they may be doing. As always, please feel free to get in touch with us, particularly if it relates to us being in Nepal.

Stay tuned for details of our new project and other updates…

Photos are up, and some thanks

There are two purposes for today’s post, the first is to let you know that we have just added a photos section to our website. There are already plenty of great photos there from all of our projects in Nepal and we will keep adding more. You can see the photos by going to our website (http://www.mitrataa.org) and then clicking on the “Photos” button on the menu bar.

Thanks as always must go to Christine Shim, a director of the Foundation and also our chief website and graphic design expert. Christine does a fantastic job of keeping the website up to date and looking fantastic – so “thanks Christine”!

Whilst on the subject of thanks, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of our partners in Nepal who have worked particularly hard in the past couple of months to make Thulo April 2008 such a massive success. We honestly could not have run all of the programs so successfully without their tireless commitment to making it happen. More important though is their contribution to the Foundation’s work on an ongoing basis including email updates on girls with scholarships, managing new scholarship applications, putting together new project proposals and handling all of the logistics to bring programs to fruition.


In particular we want to thank:

- Rabindra Puri and his staff
- Milan Dharel and the staff at CWISH
- Madan Siwakoti and the staff at Riviera International Academy
- Bal Krishna Dangol and the staff at Nepal Children’s Organization, Bal Mandir

There are many others who have helped us get to where we are today and for this we are extremely grateful. Top of this list includes all of the many donors, some have been contributing regularly since we began almost 8 years ago! Thanks also to the many volunteers who have traveled to Nepal this year to help run programs and make huge contributions to our work.

To everyone mentioned above, and anyone else who has been involved in some way, we say “thanks!” as we look forward to making even more of an impact in the future!

Bec & Adam

100 Views Kathmandu

Libby Hathorn’s 100 Views has arrived in Kathmandu! Recently Libby and her friend, Pat Granville Smith, visited us in Nepal and together we introduced the 100 Views program to the model school. You can read more about the program itself at the 100 Views website – http://www.100views.com.au and also on our website - http://www.mitrataa.org/projects/100views.htm.


The program is a celebration of the arts through a local icon so fittingly we chose Mt Everest for the first run of the program in Nepal. From our perspective the program also provides a great opportunity to work with school teachers in Nepal to develop more creative and learner centered methods of teaching which fits in perfectly with the training we have been conducting over the last 6 months with the model school.

Libby and Pat spent 3 days with the teachers from the model school leading them through workshops for teaching both poetry and art. This turned out to be a more amazing experience for the teachers than we could have imagined. In a group of 21 teachers we discovered that only 2 of them had ever held a paintbrush! Imagine their joy and excitement as Pat had them sketching, painting and on the last day building a paper mache model of Mt Everest. Libby conducted the poetry workshops and she had the teachers performing different poems as well as creating their own – again a definite first for the majority of the teachers. According to one teacher, before the workshops he thought that poetry was something you did if you were bored in your spare time, not something so powerful and creative!

We know that the program was an instant success as on the 4th day we held a launch event at the model school and we were inundated with teachers and students wanting to read their poems to the entire school! Such enthusiasm is exactly what these programs are all about and I don’t think Libby and Pat could ever have been prepared for the gusto with which the teachers took to their work.


The next step in the program involves the teachers passing on their knowledge to their students and helping the school to collectively assemble a body of work that celebrates Mt Everest and its meaning to the school and the wider community. This will then culminate in a festival to celebrate 100 Views of Mt Everest and we will be posting the poetry, art and other works to the 100 Views website so that it can be viewed by children all around the world. We are also working to develop a regular connection between the students of the model school and school students in Australia so that they can both benefit from sharing their ideas and thoughts as well as their art.


As if conducting this program was not enough Libby had also arranged a documentary crew to record the entire thing so that 100 Views Kathmandu and our work through Mitrataa might be viewed by even more people. Stay tuned for details as to where you might see the finished documentary!

We really must say a big “thank you” to Libby and Pat for all of their hard work to introduce this program to Nepal – we are honoured that Libby agreed to run the first 100 Views program outside Australia in Nepal. The program has provided invaluable teaching skills and ideas to the teachers and I am sure it will be a huge hit with the students too. Neither woman had been to Nepal previously and they dealt with all the excitement and challenges that this country throws at you with great humour and compassion. We hope this will be the start of another wonderful long term friendship between Nepal and Australia.

Thulo April is drawing to a close

It is the last Saturday in April and I am sitting in a quiet cafe in Kathmandu trying to comprehend the most amazing month of programs we have just completed. At the beginning of this trip to Nepal we announced Thulo April 2008 meaning "big April", and it has lived up to this billing and more. Hopefully you will have read some of my recent blog entries and there are plenty more to come. With the amount of things going on in the past 2 weeks in particular Bec and I have barely had time to sleep let alone write blogs!


We have this morning bid farewell to the group of students, parents and teachers from MLC Sydney after they spent the last week doing some fantastic work in a number of different projects. Their energy and enthusiasm was inspiring and they have left a mark on the lives of many Nepalis - more on this in the coming days.

The week before last Libby Hathorn and Pat Granville Smith launched Libby's 100 Views program at the model school here. This was a huge success and we are already seeing some awesome poetry and art works coming from the students at the school as a result of this. Again, I will post more details shortly.

At the beginning of the month (which now feels like ages ago!) Janet O'Connor conducted the Women Journalists Workshop which I have written about previously and which was also a resounding success.

The best thing to come from all of these wonderful programs is that we have had the opportunity to introduce more people to Nepal. Working on all of the programs and sharing them with others has opened our eyes to even more ideas and possibilities for the future which is always a good thing.

Right now a little rest is needed but we wanted to post this entry to express our heartfelt gratitude to all of the people that have made this past month of work the huge success that it was. We thank not only those who travelled to Nepal to offer their support but also the many at home who also contributed in many ways to making this all happen. Thanks to all of you!


Stay tuned for more posts on the details of how the various programs played out...

Weekend Update

Well its hard to believe that I have already been in Kathmandu for 2 weeks – time flies when you’re having fun! It has been fantastic to see all of our friends again and on the work front they have all been doing an amazing job, which then makes my job that much easier and more enjoyable. On the political front, the elections are set for 10th April and so far it appears that they will be going ahead. There has been some small pockets of unrest in the Terai and other outer areas but I think the general consensus is that everyone is fairly serious about doing this properly and getting on with governing the country so let’s hope for the best.


As I sit in the café of the Kathmandu Guest House to write this I am struggling to know where to begin. It has been a very hectic time as I have traversed the city numerous times for meetings, and then some more meetings, each time drinking numerous cups of Nepali tea (think Chai), to make sure all the logistics are sorted for Thulo April 2008. I guess the best thing to say here is that all of our plans have been implemented as hoped and I can’t wait until our visitors start arriving and we start the real work! It is going to be such an amazing month of new and exciting initiatives and the support and passion from our partners here in making preparations has been brilliant. Our timetable is set and I will list it here so you can follow our progress:

4th – 5th April: Women Journalists’ Workshop, being conducted by Janet O’Connor and held in conjunction with Working Women Journalists Nepal.

16th – 19th April: Implementation of the 100 Views project, being conducted by Libby Hathorn at the Model School. This will include numerous sessions of teacher training incorporating art and poetry and will be followed by an official launch of the program, the first one outside of Australia! The teachers and students are going to start creating various pieces of work all based on and inspired by Mt Everest. This is an ongoing project that will culminate in a festival at the school in which all of the work will be put on display for the students, teachers, parents and the wider community. In addition to this we will be setting up an online contact between students from the school and students from schools that have implemented the program in Australia so that they can share their experiences.


21st April: The students from MLC Sydney will be visiting the Bal Mandir orphanage and providing a entertaining program on the importance of personal hygiene and looking after your environment. With around 100 excitable Nepali kids present this is no doubt going to be a hilarious afternoon of fun.

22nd April: The MLC group then head to the school in Phulbari where they will be painting a mural, implementing a rubbish sorting system (what we hope will start a revolution in Nepal!), and challenging the local school children to a game of volleyball!


23rd April: MLC then travel to Bhaktapur to visit the boys in the Bhaktapur Muscular Dystrophy Centre. They will be divided into small groups with the boys and compete in a treasure hunt amongst the ancient temples and alleyways of Bhaktapur, finishing with a picnic lunch in the grounds of a UNESCO awarded traditional newari style house.

24th April: This day’s program sees MLC conducting teacher training programs for different class levels at the Model School.

25th April: MLC’s work culminates in a cultural program at the model school in which the local students will perform some tradition songs and dances and the MLC students will reciprocate – should be interesting!

Hmmm, now I am feeling quite tired just thinking about it! Somewhere amongst all of these activities we have to find time to visit all of the girls with scholarships, launch the Daisy Chains program, launch the Pets as Therapy program, collect report cards for all of the scholarship girls and keep everyone updated through this blog. Oh well, sleep is just a state of mind anyway!

Exciting New Project!

It is with much pride and excitement that we can officially announce our largest and most ambitious program ever! The project is called “Daisy Chains – Empowering Nepal’s Women”.


We have spent the past few months working with CWISH, one of our partners in Nepal, on reviewing needs studies and reports. They have also carried out a number of small pilot programs which have proved hugely successful, so now we are ready to go!

“But what is it?” I hear you ask. We are going to provide a group of 500 (yes, you read correctly) women with basic literacy, numeracy and business skills training. We are going to help them establish a savings plan and also provide them with some seed money. We are then going to mentor them as they set up, in small groups of around 20 each, their own small businesses. This will be a truly life-changing opportunity for these women, who will predominantly come from urban poor communities and living in often unimaginable situations.

The UN recently stated on Women’s Day that studies continue to show that investing in education and empowerment of women has proven benefits for many aspects of the societies of developing countries. You can read more about this here. This type of project also works directly towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

But wait … there’s more! We wanted to make this project sustainable and also find an incentive for the women to repay the seed money loaned to them whilst also invoking in them a sense of pride and honour. We don’t want these women to feel like they are just receiving handouts from a foreign donor and we also want to give them a role in helping others. Therefore, we are introducing the “Pay it Forward” concept into the program. This means that as the loans for the first groups are repaid, these funds will then be utilized to fund the next group and so on. Therefore, once the initial amount of seed money is established, it should only require minimal top ups to maintain and even expand the program!

This is where you come in. We are seeking donors to raise the funds to establish the program as well as setting up the loans for the women to start their businesses. The cost to sponsor 1 group of 20 women is $1,000.00 (AUD). This covers all of the expenses of educating the women as well as the ongoing monitoring and business mentoring. This amount also includes the initial seed money to get establish the business.



So if you and a group of 9 friends joined forces to “adopt a group of women”, it would only cost $100.00 each to make the most enormous impact on others’ lives or you could hold a fundraising event to raise the money. This could be a great project for a group of workmates, a social club, a business group such as a Chamber of Commerce, the list is endless. All it takes is a commitment right now to make a difference. You will receive reports on the progress of your sponsored group at each stage of the program including photos – so you can see for yourself the changes taking place!

We will be posting more details of the program on our website soon and we anticipate an officially launch of the program whilst we are in Nepal during Thulo April 2008. So stay tuned for further updates, and please get in touch if you would like to contribute or help in any way – all it takes is your decision to do something, and acting on that decision.

More big things coming in 2008...

We had the most inspiring experience when we were in Nepal last November. We went along to a lesson with a group of women who are all illiterate domestic workers in Kathmandu. They are involved in a pilot program by CWISH which is providing them with basic literacy and numeracy skills as well as helping them to set up a micro business together. The women commit to a savings program during the course and then CWISH matches whatever they have saved to help them set up their business. The women were so energetic and enthusiastic – it was infectious and we had such a laugh with them as they performed a short play for us on women’s rights.

We wanted to help CWISH launch this project on a bigger scale and to take it one step further – to “pay it forward”. This was inspired by the movie with Helen Hunt called “Pay It forward”. Bec’s brother, Simon, suggested this movie to us a few years ago and we went straight out and bought it on DVD. The lesson from the movie has been tucked away in the back of our minds ever since as we knew it would play a part in the Mitrataa Foundation at some stage. Rather than repaying the money provided by us to the Foundation as in a typical microloan scenario, they will pay it into an account for the next group of women, ensuring that the program is self-sustaining and helping them to build a network of support for their businesses.

We are very excited to announce that we have just agreed with CWISH to launch this program with an objective of providing basic business, literacy and numeracy skills to 500 women in the next 12 months and setting up 28 micro businesses with them. This is going to require a lot of fundraising so watch this space for more information. If you are interested in helping us to raise the money for this exciting new project, please contact us at adam@mitrataa.org or bec@mitrataa.org.

Busy April Looming!

Happy New Year and Happy Chinese New Year to you all!

Bec and I have spent the first month of 2008 furiously planning for the exciting, challenging and hopefully life-changing projects that we are going to be working on with the Foundation this year. I have mentioned details of some of these previously, particularly with regard to the group of students, parents and teachers from MLC in Sydney who will be working with us in Nepal in April. Details of that trip can be found at http://mitrataa.blogspot.com/2007/07/exciting-plans-for-2008.html.

Dates and the itinerary for that trip have now been finalized and we are working with our various partners in Nepal to work out the final details. The group now consists of 35 people (!) which is enormous and is going to make for an awesome experience for all involved. Watch out for blog entries once the trip unfolds in April as I will be posting regular updates as well as loads of photos.

I will be spending about 7 weeks in Nepal starting from the 15th March and carrying right through until the beginning of May. Bec will be there with me for most of April too. During that time we have organised a formal training program for women journalists as a result of the fantastic forum we ran with Janet O’Connor in Kathmandu last year (http://mitrataa.blogspot.com/2007/11/women-journalists-forum.html). Janet will be returning to run the course which promises to provide loads of useful tools and ideas as well as continuing to establish a network for women in journalism in Nepal. We are proud to be working with the Nepal Working Women Journalists Association on this project.

Another of our friends, Libby Hathorn, an award winning Australian author, will also be visiting Kathmandu in April to establish the first 100 Views program in Nepal. The program is a teaching project focused around students doing creative works based on places/things of significance in their school’s area (more information can be found at http://www.100views.com.au). We will initially be running the course in the model school we have recently started working with in Maijubahal, Kathmandu. Once Libby has trained the teachers in how to implement the program, we will then be following this up with the MLC group who will start to implement the program with the students. It promises to be an amazing creative alternative to the standard teaching methods so often favoured in Nepal. The results of the students’ work will be shared with other schools who have participated in the project through the 100 Views website.

So as you can see April is looking pretty busy for us, but all of the programs will be so much fun as well as providing great opportunities and experiences for all those involved. In addition to this, we have started discussions with one of our partners in Nepal for the establishment of a massive initiative that could potentially affect the lives of around 500 Nepali women!!! Stay tuned for more information on this project in the coming months.

All of these projects are the result of inspiration from people saying to us, “I want to get involved in the Mitrataa Foundation – what can I do?”. Everyone has something to offer the people of Nepal. So if you would like to spend some time there – whether it be a few days, a few weeks or a few months – let us know and we can tailor a program for you.

We hope 2008 has been fruitful and fulfilling for all of you so far, and we look forward to sharing more news and details of our work as the year goes on!

Back in Kathmandu!

We arrived in Kathmandu without incident on Sunday morning after taking an alternate route on Air China via Chengdu and Lhasa. The usual Thai flights have been booked out for weeks which is a fantastic sign for Nepal, which is absolutely buzzing with tourists. Another bonus for us was flying over the expanse of the Himalayas and directly alongside Mount Everest – a view that always inspires.

It is the middle of the major festival time in Nepal which always adds to the excitement around town. Many Nepalis are wearing their best clothes and racing from house to house to share food with their friends and families. There are often offerings placed on the streets and out the front of people’s homes in the hope of attracting Laxmi, the goddess of wealth, into the home or shop.

On Monday we met with some Nepali friends who invited us to their home for some dal bhat, well I should say it was rather more special than the usual variety. They placed about 15 dishes in front of us containing everything from spicy chicken to goat’s lung and most things in between. It was wonderful to share the festival experience with a local family. We also talked with them about the current political situation in the country and unfortunately it sounds as though things are as up in the air as always.

Tuesday was the first day of ‘work’ and our first task was collecting our friend, Janet, from the airport – always an adventure in its own right! This is Janet’s first visit to Nepal and she is planning to work with us on devising some Journalism training program for women journalists. We will also be showing her some of the sights of Kathmandu as well as some of the projects we have been working on.

In the afternoon we met with Milan and Shanti, directors of CWISH, one of our partner organisations in Kathmandu. We had many projects to discuss with them and are excited to confirm that we will be running our first teacher training program in the model school at the beginning of November. Bec will be conducting a 3 day course for the teachers of the school on different teaching methods encompassing different learning styles. This is the first step in our long term plan to make the model school a resource for this type of work so that we can then expand the program to other teachers and schools thoughout all of Nepal!

On the model school, CWISH have taken over an existing school for this purpose about 1 month ago. We will be visiting the school next week and helping them with plans for decoration and sourcing resources and equipment. The school currently has about 200 students between Nursery and class 10, including 40 students living in the school hostel. We will be looking at a particular scholarship program that will be run through this school in the coming months so stay tuned!

We also discussed the jounalism program with Janet, Milan and Shanti. We are going to conduct an initial session one morning with some young women journalists who are currently working on their own community radio station. We hope to get an idea from speaking with them about exactly what type of things they are most interested in receiving support for and also an idea of what they are most passionate about in pursuing journalism in Nepal. From there we will be able to devise a program targeted to their needs and aspirations, and this can then be run on future visits to Nepal.

So, as you can see it’s full steam ahead for us here! Later in the week we will be visiting Bhaktapur and possibly Phulbari, and also checking in on some of the sponsored girls. As always we love to hear from you if you have any comments or questions – particularly whilst we are here in case it is something related to being in Nepal. That’s all for now but look out for more updates soon…