Archive for the ‘Sponsorship’ Category

In our last newsletter, I announced a new policy that targeted our sponsorship programme on students in their final two years of school and into tertiary education, rather than on younger children. In particular I mentioned that I was looking for people to sponsor a young Nepali man, Gorkhana Pathak, who wanted to train as a doctor. Five of our sponsors stepped forward valiantly, offering to co-sponsor him, but even the sums they were able to commit would not have been enough to pay the bills without help from elsewhere. Happily, I have recently heard that a volunteer who had taught at Gorkhana’s orphanage has secured funds to get him trained in the Czech Republic. There are still many hurdles for Gok - visa, entrance exams, language proficiency tests etc, but I have been able to stand our own sponsors down. Many thanks to them for their generous impulse.
We do have one college level student, Bandana Adhikari, who is being co-sponsored under our programme. She requires £1,300 a year for her nursing programme, and is being supported by three sponsors, with funds from HELP to make good the shortfall. She’s starting her third and final year now.
One of our sponsors, Fiona Tankard, is generously sponsoring Chandraman Tamang, a student radiographer in Kathmandu, to the tune of £660 a year, a very large sum for one person to bear. He is now also in his final year.
We have been running our sponsorship programme for eight years now, so naturally we are beginning to see some of the younger children coming to the end of their schooling, and no longer requiring our support. And, of course, there are always one or two who drop out for one reason or another (including an elopement!), which is disappointing. Very occasionally, it’s our sponsors who have to withdraw.. Luckily, we have always managed to find a substitute sponsor in these rare cases.
Currently, we have 36 sponsors sponsoring 56 young people. Five of the sponsees are new to our programme this year. One of the sponsors is Tony Abrahams who, because he was unsure how long he had to live, gave us the whole sponsorship payment for his child up front. We will continue drip-feeding his money in each year.

Gokarna Pathak, now 20 years old, wants to become a doctor.

Along with his younger brother Rajan, he has been educated and cared for by the Light for Nepal Children’s Home that was set up and continues to be funded by a group of expatriates. Their father passed away in 2000 leaving them and three other siblings in the care of their mother who brought her family to Kathmandu two years later looking for unskilled work. She started selling vegetables at an open market and is doing the same today. The eldest daughter was put in government school, while Gokarna and Rajan were admitted to LN Children’s Home. The other elder sister and elder brother where not schooled. They are currently surviving on the income the mother makes from selling vegetables and the elder brother’s wages as a bus driver.

Gokarna finished year 12 in June 2010 and is hoping to go to medical school. He graduated from year 10 in 2008 in the first division (aggregate score greater than 60%. The pass mark is 32%). His two top subjects were science and mathematics. He passed year 11 in second division and is waiting for his year 12 results. Apart from studying, which he does diligently, Gokarna (or Goks to his friends) enjoys music, plays the guitar and basketball.

He is passionate about becoming a doctor. In fact he has talked about it for the past six years ever since he went with one of the younger children from LFN, who was ill, to a hospital and stayed with him for a couple of days.To fulfil his dream, he needs sponsorship.The founders of the LN Children’s Home committed themselves to keep the children in school until the end of year 12, or college as it is known in Nepal, but do not have the resources to fund university education for them.

The sums needed to get Gorkana through Medical School are large (see below) and beyond the scope of a single sponsor. Therefore, we are inviting you to join a community of sponsors who would contribute whatever they can afford towards the following estimated costs of a medical education:
Year 1 £15,974

Year 2 £4,843

Year 3 £4,843

Year 4 £4,843

Year 5 £4,843

Year 6 £4,000

In addition, if his chosen medical school does not have free accommodation, he will need £185 per month for living expenses.

This is going to be difficult to achieve, but we are hopeful that we will be able to gather enough sponsors to make Goks’ dream come true! If you would like to join in, please contact us (via our ‘contact’ page) and let me know the total amount you are willing to contribute in each of the years he hopes to be at college. If we do succeed in getting enough money committed, then I will let you know, and give you payment instructions.

Until recently, we have sought sponsors for students of all ages, from kindergarten upwards.

From now on I want to focus our efforts on helping older students with  academic potential through their final two years of secondary school, and beyond  to higher education. The costs are much greater than for the younger school  children, but the sponsorship periods are shorter, so the long term cost to the  sponsor should still be affordable.

The reason for this change of policy is that  most young children these days can get to primary school, whereas very few can  afford to go on to higher education. A student passing successfully through  college and emerging with a useful vocational or academic qualification can make  a huge difference to the well-being of his or her extended family, as well as  make a significant contribution to the development of their country. Basic  literacy is also vital, but literacy levels are increasing in Nepal and India,  and I think there is less need for HELP to focus on this now.

The first student we are helping under this new dispensation is Chandraman  Tamang. The following details can also be found on the website. He is a  successful student who has managed to pass the entrance test for a three-year  Radiography course at the Martyr Memorial Institute of Science and Technology in  Patan, Nepal, while coping with the care of his ailing brother who has recently  died of cancer. He is one of only 30 students who will be accepted onto the  course, provided he can find the funds to pay for the fees, books and uniform.  The family is absolutely broke having spent all their meagre resources on  medical expenses incurred by Chandraman’s brother. His father is  a taxi driver,  and the family live in a rented mud house.The course begins this October and to ensure that he doesn’t lose the  opportunity to take it, I have used HELP general project funds to cover the  first year expenses. However, I am looking for a sponsor to cover all three  years, so that I can eventually return this money  to the projects budget.

Can you help, I wonder? If so, please have a look at the relevant page of the HELP website: http://www.help-education.org/students.html to see how you can sponsor him.

About 18 months ago, I was approached by the Mountain Company with a proposal to run a charity trek in Sikkim under their auspices for the benefit of HELP’s various projects in the Himalayas. This seemed like a good idea at the time, providing tourists with a chance to stay in a Sikkimese village and to visit a school we are helping (en route to the start of their trek), in return for a donation to boost HELP’s funds.

Disappointingly, we have had no takers. My guess is that many of our contacts, especially our ex-volunteers, know the Himalayas already, and don’t need to use a UK-based company to arrange their treks. As for people who don’t know us, it seems likely that they would be more inclined to choose a charity trek that raises money for a cause they can relate to, such as cancer research or disaster relief. Raising money to participate in a charity trek is extra work, and, for those who have not visited the Himalayas, the state of education in the region may not seem like a cause that is worth the effort.

Whatever the reason for the lack of interest, my son, Alan, and I are going ahead with the trek which will take us close to Mount Kanchenjunga, the third highest mountain in the world. We fly out to India on 10th October, and, after visiting schools in Sikkim, we will start the eight-day trek, which will take us up to an altitude of 5000 metres (16,000 feet), on 16th.

I don’t want to throw in the towel at this stage and give up trying to use the trek to raise funds for HELP. I hope to send Barbara Porter to Ladakh next September to run a teacher training seminar for local teachers in Leh, which I am sure most of you will agree is a worthy cause. Barbara, a free-lance teacher trainer,  volunteered with us as a teacher at St. Paul’s primary school in South Sikkim three years ago, and went back last February to run a couple of  successful one-week seminars for local teachers in Kalimpong and Gangtok respectively. You can see extracts from her report in this blog .  The total cost of the trip, including Barbara’s fees, was £2000, and we need to raise a similar amount for her next trip.

If you agree with us that  training local teachers is an excellent way of improving the quality of teaching in village schools, and would like to sponsor us, the thing to do is to go to the donations page of our website (http://www.help-education.org/donations.html ) and complete the online form, noting in the comments box that you are sponsoring our trek.

Wish us luck!

Jim Coleman

Director, Himalayan Education Lifeline Programme

We have just taken over the administration of eight sponsorships of children at the Algarah primary school that had originally been set up and run by one of our ex-volunteers. That means that we now are responsible for helping thirty-three sponsors to sponsor forty-three children.

During my recent visit to India I was able to hand over £1,800 sponsorship money for fifteen children for the next school year (2008). This will be spent on books, stationery, uniforms, school fees, satchels and so on.