Friday, December 24, 2010

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year: Time for Action

Dear Friends,
On behalf of Sarswati Peace School Family, I would like to extend our warmest greetings and wishes from Nepal. We wish you all a very happy Christmas and the New Year 2011. 


The year 2011 is going to be one of the most important year for us. Our first batch of students will begin their schooling with us. We have come along a long way from running a summer camp in 2009 to starting a school in 2010. 


We are extremely lucky to have friends and supporters all over the world from Tanzania to Switzerland to Belgium to Germany and the list goes on. Our special thank goes to Epic Change (Stacey and Sanjay and all others in the team). They have been so helpful in supporting and encouraging us when were struggling with the project. They are doing phenomenal work in Tanzania and elsewhere. 


Also, our friend and supporter Ania Lichota from UK. She has always been pushing us to move forward with the project and helping us in need. She is an inspiration for thousands of mountain climbers and philanthropists. She did climb Mt. Everest in the summer of 2009. 


We also thank President Clinton and the Clinton Global Initiative for granting us $6,000 for our project. The people at CGI U are wonderful and inspiring. 


And of course Renu Di who is instrumental to our project here. She has been with us in every step of our progress and failures. We will always be indebted to her. 


Jen Lemen is like an angel to us. She is a constant source of inspiration and guidance. We will always be in need for her support. So is Mama Lucy and her team. Christina Ammon from California. Thank you for visiting us and helping us. And in recent months Sabi Gurung has been a part of our project. She has been helping us in range of issues from preparing student profiles to helping us connect with people and org. here in Nepal. Thank you young doctor. 


Nicholas Kang, my friend from St. Olaf will soon be joining us here in Nepal to help us with the project. We sat in our small room at St. Olaf and designed our foundation's website. We fought and disagreed but at the end we both have a common goal of helping to change the lives of some of the neediest children in Nepal. We welcome him to Nepal. 
The lives of some of these children will now change forever for the better. 
Most importantly, its YOU All who are making this happen. Without your generous support and help, we would not have started this project. To continue and move forward with our project, we constantly need your guidance, suggestion and help. 


Please go to our homepage and donate to change the lives of Nepal's future leaders. We also explore you to consider sponsoring some of our students. 


We humbly request you to be part of this movement. Please go to our homepage and look for donate button


There are so many people We have to thank. Please forgive us if you are not mentioned here. You will all be part of our life here. 

Thank you all. 
Namaste from Nepal!

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Admissions Nightmare!

I definitely anticipated overwhelming number of applicants for our first batch of students at Sarswati Peace School but not like the report I got from the field today. Just yesterday alone more than 80 forms were filled in. More than 200 forms have been filled in the last three days. We only have spot for 250 students  and we are distributing 500 forms at this point. When my good friend Nicholas Kang will be here in the last week of December, we will travel to the village and select the students. I am still trying to figure out ways and means to make parents understand whose children will not be admitted this year. Everyone is hoping to admit their children and for that we need at least double our planned resources and we do not have the resources to do just that. It seems like our 500 forms will be gone in less than a week. I can see some of the parents ready to thrash me in public. I need to polish my conflict resolution and negotiation skills used during purchase of our school land.

A young girl with her brother. She cannot go to school as she has to take care of her brother. The young brother will be sent to school once he is four but the girl has to stay home. We need to change this. 
On the other hand, we are receiving applicants from extremely remote villages within Gorkha district. Just this morning, four parents came from Lapu Village in Northern part of our district that boarders with Tibet. They have to walk for four straight days to reach our village. They want to admit their children and I just cannot say no. I am excited that even in those places they now realize the importance of quality education and what it means to them and to their families.

We hope to provide opportunities to many of children from remotest part of our district and beyond.

Fever, chest infection, and cough and cold have been pulling me down for several days now.

Stay tuned for our Christmas Special Scholarships Campaign.