Dear HELP Friends and Supporters,
As we share this 2025 update, HELP enters a new chapter. At the end of the year, Simon Forwood stepped down as Chair of Trustees after three years guiding the organisation, and we are delighted to welcome Jolene Raison into the role. While leadership evolves, the heart of HELP remains the same — a community of volunteers, supporters and partner schools working together to expand educational opportunity for children in remote Himalayan regions.
Over the past year our volunteers and partner schools have continued this work across Ladakh, Sikkim, Uttarakhand and beyond. Through teaching placements, practical support, and long-standing relationships with local educators and communities, HELP has been able to contribute in ways both large and small to the schools we serve. In the pages that follow, you will read about the experiences of our volunteers, updates from the schools themselves, and the people who continue to carry this work forward.
To all who support HELP — through volunteering, donations, encouragement, and friendship — thank you for helping keep this mission alive.
Joining the Journey
From the Chair of Trustees – Jolene Raison
It is a privilege to join the Himalayan Education Lifeline Programme as a board member and to serve as Chair of an organisation with such a rich history. I step into this role, proud to be joining HELP on a journey that was started over 20 years ago by founder Jim Coleman and lovingly continued by the many people who have carried the project forward with passion.
I was first drawn to help by the genuine care I saw, both in the selection of volunteers and in their work with schools. At a time when I was exploring volunteer teaching opportunities, HELP stood out for its community-centred approach. I was drawn by the project’s commitment to establishing lasting relationships with schools and communities, and a passion for making a lifelong difference in the lives of the children they reach.
My own background—as a children’s author, linguistics lecturer, and mother—has fostered an appreciation for the role that language and education can play in unlocking opportunities for children. While my professional path led me to the University of South Africa, HELP remained in my heart, and I am grateful to now support its work directly.
The road ahead is undoubtedly rich with opportunity and definitely paved with love.
During 2025 we were also delighted to welcome Bart Jan Hermans to the HELP Board of Directors. Bart first joined HELP as a volunteer teacher in Sikkim in 2016 and has since remained closely connected to the organisation and its mission. Below he shares a little of his journey with HELP and what inspired him to take on this new role.
The adventure continues
Bart Jan Hermans – Director
My name is Bart Jan Hermans, and I’m very enthusiastic about joining HELP’s board. After graduating from law school in late 2015, I was looking for a meaningful assignment before starting my career in law. By coincidence, I stumbled upon HELP’s website and immediately loved the way HELP operated. HELP stood out because, unlike many ‘voluntourism’ organisations, it genuinely prioritised the interests of the schools and the children.
My first assignment in Sikkim in 2016 was fantastic and deeply enriching: an adventure in the mountains combined with wonderful, enthusiastic children eager to learn. After returning to Sikkim for holidays in later years, I decided to volunteer again—this time eight years later in Ladakh.
Now, I’m looking forward to a third and ongoing adventure with HELP. As a director of HELP, I am passionate about continuing its important mission to reach children in remote mountainous areas of the Himalayas, improve their education, and work towards greater equality of opportunity. In a world where governments are increasingly withdrawing from foreign aid programs, this mission is more important than ever. Talented children are born everywhere, even in the smallest villages high in the mountains. They too deserve the chance to realise their full potential and support their communities.
School and volunteer report 2025
Barbara Porter – Director
Currently HELP has partnerships with six schools with whom we have worked for very many years. Although we have not been able to send volunteers to all of our schools, we maintain close relationships with them and in some cases have been able to support these schools in other ways.
LADAKH
In Ladakh we were glad that Victor Svistoonoff from the US was able to go to the Spituk Monastery School for a one month assignment. The monastery and nunnery schools in Ladakh are suffering from falling numbers of students as it is no longer traditional for families to send at least one of their children to one of these schools. This school currently has 25 students. Nevertheless these schools are important keepers of part of Ladakh’s cultural heritage and we were glad to be able to support the school in this way this year.
Spituk Monastery School building with the famous Spituk monastery behind.
From left to right: Mr Eshey Thundup, retired Principal of the Lamdon Senior Secondary School in Leh, and HELP’s representative in Ladakh; Geshey Lobzang Rinchen, Director of Spituk School and HELP Director (Volunteer Programme) Barbara Porter.
The other school we work with in Ladakh is the Lamdon Khalse school in Khalse, a large village which is a 2 hour journey from the state capital Leh. This school receives support for staffing from one of the Dalai Lama’s Foundations but relies on other sources for all other resources. We have been cooperating with IAHV (International Association for Human Values) for three years now.
They have a wonderful project called the READ LIBRARY project which provides library books free of charge to schools that have no other access to such a resource. HELP has now made an application on behalf of two of our partner schools, one in West Sikkim which received books a couple of years ago and this year on behalf of the Lamdon Khalse school in Ladakh. IAHV has generously provided 150 books in English for this school’s library. These books arrived earlier this autumn to the delight of the staff and students as can be seen in the photo.
150 books in English arrive from IAHV at the Lamdon Khalse school in Ladakh
Further information about this project can be found by following this link to their website:
www.iahv.org.uk/project/read-library/
UTTARAKHAND
Our partner school in Uttarakhand is in the remote Tehri Garhwal District in Uttarakhand. It was founded and is run by the Serve & Share Association (SASA). We have sent many volunteers to this school in the past and most recently introduced philanthropist and benefactor Jayati Marshall to the school. She has supported the school in significant ways, paying for building improvements, seed funding a community organic food scheme and most recently providing the school with its first large LED screen for use with the primary age children. This will give the teachers there a whole new way of enhancing the students learning.
Below, the new screen in position, and excited students trying to get a sight of it in action!
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Founder and Director of SASA, Mr Shailender David ,with staff and students at the school.
SIKKIM
We have two partner schools in Sikkim. In South Sikkim is one of the very first schools supported by HELP, its very first volunteer being our current Treasurer Simon Forwood who volunteered there in 2002. Currently this school has 85 students. Good news, as this represents a slow but steady increase since the difficult days of the Covid lockdown. We were not able to provide a volunteer this year but hope to do so in 2026.
Classroom in St Paul’s, Namthang, South Sikkim and below, staff and students in front of the school on a festival day.
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We were delighted to be able to send a volunteer in the spring of 2025 to our school in West Sikkim, Vidya Sagar Gyanpeeth in the village of Tathang Meli, a 45-minute drive beyond Pelling.
Toni Walery is an experienced TESOL teacher from Merced in California, USA. Toni’s experience and enthusiastic, professional and warm-hearted approach meant that she made an invaluable contribution to the school both in and out of the classroom. Being a HELP volunteer is not without its challenges and Toni’s end of assignment report gives some insight into how to deal with these:
“Somewhere about the third week I also realized…that the thing that was really important…was building relationships. Once I changed my mindset to this thought, and just being present for the students, my time at the school became something of a magical time for me.”
And she concludes: “the students were a delight every single day, and being there was one of the best things I have done in a long time.”
Leaving ceremony at the end of Toni’s volunteer assignment. Toni in the centre and to her right her husband who visited in her last few days there.
In addition, Toni raised a wonderful $1300 USD before she went to the school, a very generous additional donation for the school. It was especially welcome at this time for the school as it was sorely needed to complete the hostel roof repairs which had only been three quarters finished in 2024.
Below, leaking section of roof before and after repair. Toni’s donation also enabled the rotten ceiling inside to be replaced and painted.
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KALIMPONG
We do our best to support a very small primary school in Kalimpong. J N Memorial School is in a village at the edge of Kalimpong staffed by a small team of dedicated teachers who are not shy of painting and repairing the school building as far as they are able as well as working hard in the classroom. After a few years when she was unable to travel to Kalimpong, former HELP volunteer Annie Taylor has once again given her time and skill to this school that clearly means such a lot to her. She was there for three months last year and has just started yet another three month stint this month and will stay until May. Such consistent and committed support is rare and makes such a difference to the life and effectiveness of a school.
Students in JN Memorial school yard, near Kalimpong, December 2025.
Volunteers contribute to and support the work of HELP in so many ways, not just in the classroom during their assignments. Many return for a second stint as a volunteer (Simon Pierse and Bart Hermans most recently) raise money for the schools they were at after they have returned (Simon Pierse has just raised £900 for HELP funds by auctioning two of his paintings) and keeping in touch with HELP and their schools: Marti Soli returned again to Ladakh, this time on holiday following a volunteer assignment in 2022 and Toni Walery has gone back again to Vidya Sagar and is teaching for another month this spring. This continued interest and support has meant so much during these last years and is evidence of the long-lasting, beneficial effect for both the HELP schools and the volunteers who have given so generously of their time and energy to this work.
Finally we are delighted that one of our new Directors, Bart Hermans, is visiting Nepal this February. We hope to form new partnerships with one or two schools in Kathmandu so that we can start sending volunteers again to Nepal, both in Kathamndu and if possible to our existing partner school in Western Nepal.
Looking Ahead
With 2026 already underway, HELP continues its commitment to supporting our partner schools and the communities they serve across the Himalayan region. While the global environment for travel and international cooperation continues to evolve, the relationships built between volunteers, teachers and students remain the foundation of our work.
If you have ever considered volunteering, supporting one of our partner schools, or helping HELP continue this mission in any way, we warmly invite you to get in touch. With the continued support of our volunteers and friends around the world, we look forward to strengthening existing partnerships and building new ones in the years ahead.
To everyone who has supported HELP — through volunteering, donations, encouragement, and friendship — thank you for helping make this work possible.
धेरै धेरै धन्यवाद
Dherai dherai dhanyabad
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