Happy Nepali New Year!

Happy Nepali New Year!

Welcome to 2068! Today is the first day of the Nepali New Year and, on behalf of the whole Mitrataa family, we wish you all a wonderful New Year.

The Mitrataa Rising Stars Child Club at Bal Mandir celebrated the new year last night with a wonderful party, organised entirely by the girls. They set the menu, did the shopping, made the decorations, organised the children, led the dancing and the fun of the party. We definitely have some skilled party planners in the making! Thanks to all the organising committee – you guys did a wonderful job!

I haven’t seen the kids have that much fun in a long time! The evening started with a special dhal bhat and vegetable curry with pickle which was delicious. This was followed by cake and soft drink for everyone. Then the fun really kicked off with some celebratory cheers for the New Year and then everyone hit the dance floor for some serious dancing. The laughter and screams of excitement said it all. The evening ended with New Year chocolates for everyone. Happy New Year, kids. You certainly started the New Year with a bang!


More photos at our facebook page.
(from Bec)

Meet the Team - Chetana

With so many projects needing daily management and attention in Nepal, it is no surprise that we have come to rely heavily on our fantastic team there. As they are such an integral part of our work we wanted to share something about them with you and so below is a snapshot of our Senior Project Manager – Chetana.

Education: Bachelor of Arts in Social Work.

Favourite colour: all shades of pink, purple, blue.

Hobbies: I like reading books as they open up my imagination. It’s like watching movies with more action, drama and you get to make up how the characters look. My other hobbies are to learn new things especially to do with music and arts.

Favourite subject at school: I liked English, Music and sports.

What makes you happy?: Spending time with my sisters and friends. I like talking to them about different things in life.  Having delicious food always brings smile to my face. Also, watching the sunset, the sky or being near beautiful trees, monuments, peaceful environment always makes me happy. Recently I realized that being able to bring smile on someone else’s face makes me feel happy too.

Tell us a bit about your family: I have my father, mother, two younger sisters a younger brother and a dog in my family. So in total, there’s seven members if you count me as well. My father and mother own a small lodge and we have occasional visitors. My sisters are both studying Fine Arts at Kathmandu University. My brother is still in school and my dog loves to sit in the sun (even in summer). I live at New Baneshwor. It was so quiet back when we had just moved here but now its grown into a big business area. My house is yellow in color. My father loves flowers so we try to grow as many  as we can of different kinds according to season.

Thank you Chetana for all your hard work and for sharing these interesting things about yourself!

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...

More good news...

Below is the second edition of our Good News newsletter from some of our fantastic team in Nepal. Enjoy!

Great way to become involved - become an Everyday Hero!

We had a wonderful problem (if there is such a thing!). People kept asking us how they could help us with fundraising. So we have joined forces with Everyday Hero to make it even easier for everyone to contribute to our work through fundraising.

Through Everyday Hero you can set up your own fundraising page so that if, for example, you take part in the upcoming Sydney Morning Herald Half Marathon, it is easy for you create your own web page which can then be emailed to all of your friends asking them to sponsor you with their donations going to Mitrataa. Everyday Hero make the collection of donations easy as people simply follow the links from your page and enter their payment details. The site collects the donations, automatically issues the receipts, and then passes the funds on to Mitrataa.

Your fundraising page is personalised with a photo as well as whatever information you would like to put there, including the reasons for your participation. You are able to set yourself a fundraising target and then log in from time to time to see how you are going.

From my own experience doing this for the city2surf last year I can honestly say that asking people for support and monitoring my fundraising target was also a great motivator to keep training for the big day!

Some upcoming events you might consider joining include:

• The Sun-Herald Surf Swim at Dee Why on 13^th March
• The Canberra Times Canberra Marathon on 9^th & 10^th April
• The Sydney Morning Herald Half Marathon on 15^th May
• Run Melbourne, presented by The Age on 17^th July

Or perhaps there is a smaller event in your local area which you could join.

You don’t need to be running a marathon though to help fundraise for us! You can set up a personal fundraising page for anything eg. if you are having a birthday and want to encourage your friends and family to donate to Mitrataa rather than giving you presents. Or if you have a goal that you want to achieve and need some motivation to help you get there!

2010 was a very successful year for us but we still have so much more work to do. With your help we can continue to reach more and more of the amazing women and girls in Nepal who just need that little bit of help up to really spread their wings and follow their dreams. Every little bit you raise helps!

Visit the Everyday Hero site to see how you can create your own fundraising page (remembering to add Mitrataa as your chosen charity!) or email me (adam@mitrataa.org) and I can help you with the set up or any questions you may have. Don’t forget, all donations to Mitrataa are fully tax deductible too.

Thank you in advance for your support,

Adam. 

Child Club Achievement

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

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

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

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

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

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

  

Good news to start 2011

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


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


Thanks Chetana and Diwakar!