Make a Donation

By making one-off donations, you are able to assist in the education of a child without the commitment that long-term sponsorship entails.

What the money will be used for

One-off donations will be used to make essential purchases in support of both students and schools. For instance, should a sponsor have to terminate their regular payment, the donations pool will be drawn upon to continue financing the student's school or college fees until a new sponsor can be found.

Again, a student may not be able to afford to clothe him or herself to an adequate standard, or to buy the necessary books, or a satchel to carry them in. The donations pool will be used to purchase such one-off items.

Schools will also benefit from your donations, which will be used not only to buy teaching materials and aids, but also essential improvements to the school's premises, such as a monsoon-proof roof, or a new classroom. Please see below to find out which projects HELP is currently running.

HELP's administration expenses are not met from donated funds, so you can rest assured that all your donation will go towards the children and schools of the eastern Himalayas. And as a donor, you will receive an annual newsletter listing the ways that your money has been used.

Current projects

JNM schoolkids with donated books

The JN Memorial school building project: This little school was housed in a flimsy wooden structure, which was slowly sliding down the mountain. The target for a new concrete school building is £7,000. The target has now been reached thanks to the efforts of our friends. The first floor has been built, and the second floor will be completed in the coming post-monsoon period.
HELP has been supporting the Vidya Sagar Gyanpeeth school, a remote Sikimmese primary school, in its efforts to construct more classrooms. The cost of the construction work is estimated to be £4,500. So far (as at September 2010) we have been able to send £2400.
Teacher Training: This programme aims to improve standards of English teaching by introducing local English teachers to new methodologies.A free-lance teacher trainer who taught as a HELP volunteer at St. Paul primary school in 2006, has run seminars in seminars in Kalimpong and Gangtok and Ladakh since 2008. This on-going project is being funded out of the HELP donation fund.
It is not widely known that the floods that hit Pakistan in 2010, also affected the Indian Himalayas, including Ladakh and Uttarkhand. HELP has recently sent £500 to help re-house villagers in Uttarkhand who have lost their homes in the floods.
In addition to these projects, our volunteers and their families make direct donations to their schools. For example, the mother of one of our volunteers, has raised £1730 for the Gyan Jyoti school in Kalimpong, which wants to build two more classrooms. She has also set up a pen pal link between the Gyan Jyoti school and the school she teaches at.

Past projects

In 2003, when HELP began its association with St. Paul's, the school was situated in an old, dilapidated village house, with no security of tenure.

Click on the pictures below to see the stages in the construction work:

The Social Public School, Pokhara, Nepal: HELP contributed £500 towards the building of a Science Lab. In 2007, we contributed £150 towards the costs of setting up a library.
Computers for Indian Schools: This was a project established and run by our very first volunteer. In 2007, he imported from Australia,and set up, 20 decommissioned computers for 9 schools in Sikkim and West Bengal. We have given Simon a grant of £500 as a small contribution towards his costs.
SASA Academy, Uttarkhand, India: HELP donated £500 for a generator. The school is not linked to mains electricity.

To make a donation, simply click on this button and complete the online form:

If you feel you would prefer to focus on and assist in the development of a single student in the longer term, there is the option of sponsorship.