At the request of the Maoist dominated Constituent Assembly, King Gyanendra and his family have left the royal palace and given up the trappings of kingship. He will live in Kathmandu as an ordinary tax-paying citizen. Nepal is now, for the first time in its history, a republic, and the palace will be turned into a museum. The ending of the monarchy, the only Hindu monarchy in the world, is largely unmourned.…
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The Nepali speaking districts of Darjeeling and Kalimpong, which belong to the Indian state of West Bengal, are currently being threatened with an indefinite strike (bandh) by the recently formed Gorkha Mukti Morcha party which has revived a long standing demand for a separate state of Gorkhaland. The GMM has asked tourists to leave the district, and our volunteers have felt obliged to leave too. A previous campaign in the ’80s led to the setting up of the Gorkha Hill Council, with limited autonomy for the region.…
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On my trek in Ladakh last September, I joined a group of villagers having a tea-break in the fields where they had been harvesting the wheat. They were debating whether to buy a tractor or not. Some argued that it didn’t make sense because they already had cattle which could be used to do the threshing in the traditional way for no extra cost. The tractor not only costs money to buy, but you also need to buy petrol. One of the older men said that he would love to use a tractor before he died!…
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I have just sent the final instalment of £1,300 to complete the new school building. This money will be spent on wiring, painting, plumbing, including the installation of a toilet and bathroom for the boarders. This was our very first project. We began it from scratch in 2003 and , with the invaluable support of our first volunteer, Simon Forwood, we have, between us, raised £19,000 over the five years. Without Simon’s help, it would have taken us double the time to reach our target; but thanks are owed to all of you who, knowingly or unknowingly, contributed to this project.…
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The dates of Hindu holidays of Dussera and Diwali in 2008 are as follows:
Dussera: 6-10 October
Diwali: 28-31 October
Most schools in India and Nepal will be closed at these times.…
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Barbara Porter has returned from India where she has been running two one-week seminars for English teachers on behalf of HELP. As can be seen below, the participants (school teachers from local private and state schools) were overwhelmingly positive about the seminars. However, there are some issues that need sorting out before we do this again, including finding an optimum time of the year to run the seminars (when the schools can spare the teachers), and making sure that the seminars are advertised effectively.…
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Real Free Websites has just revamped our website, making it a lot fresher and more modern-looking, and even easier to find your way around.
They are a really good outfit, so if you are wanting a website, then I can highly recommend them. They can design you a simple one for free, and host it, if you want them to, for only $6 a month.…
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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.…
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We have a recruit for the Annapurna High School in Manang, our new project in an important village on the route of the Annapurna Circuit trek! A young American will be trekking there in the second half of March. It will take him up to seven days to get there from Kathmandu. Quite an adventure.…
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