Donation Project

Why do we give? Is it out of guilt? Compassion? More importantly, does it matter? These were the very questions I asked a monk named Yeshe. Yeshe is a 60-some year old monk born in Philadelphia, living in Pokhara. Throughout my months in Nepal, I frequently questioned him on Dharma (truth according to the Buddha). When I started this project, I asked him to explain the Buddhist beliefs behind giving. He told me that generosity is one of the basic principles to living a good and happy life. Karma plays an enormous role in giving but we must not give to get good karma for ourselves or to receive thanks and praise, but because we want to see the other person happy. Pure generosity benefits you even more than the person you’re helping. However, even if our generosity or compassion is not pure, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t give, because it makes little difference to the person you are giving aid to. Another thing Yeshe told me was that we must stretch beyond the people we know. Many times when we help people we know, we are aware that it will somehow benefit us in return. However, when we benefit complete strangers who we doubt we will ever see again, we expect nothing in return and that is when simple generosity becomes compassion.

Before I left for Nepal, I created this website and sent out an email to friends and family, asking them to contribute money to my donation project. I explained that I would be traveling through Nepal for a few months and would like to give back to the communities that welcomed me. Over the summer, I raised $1,325. This amount of money is almost five times the average Nepali’s yearly salary. Last week, I finished surveying possible projects and selected four organizations, all of them working towards the betterment of various issues in the education system. Instead of researching every single organization and project in Nepal, I researched the ones that found me through friends, people I trusted. My unorthodox plan of coming to Nepal and finding the need instead of finding projects online and judging them from afar has paid off. This way, I created relationships with the people I was helping. Although I have little experience in giving and a lot of experience in taking, I found it incredibly easy to get started. Once I had an idea, or someone else recommended something, the doors opened up and opportunities spilled out. People were so gracious and kind, not just because I had money to give but because they were so happy with the work they were doing, I was simply helping them get a little closer to their goals. Before I started this project, I met with Rob Rose, a very important man doing inspirational work in Nepal. He told me that while I looking for people to donate to, to let things come to me, rather than search for them. This has probably been the most important advice I received for my donation project and has transferred into my overall attack at life.

There are several issues concerning children’s education in Nepal, and these problems have long term affect on every student’s life. On average, a school in Nepal has around 250 students and five teachers. That’s 50 students per teacher, thus making it impossible for students to have each of their personal needs met. Another major issue is the social norm of corporal punishment. Many government schools are in bad physical shape and are extremely underfunded, especially in the countryside. Most of the very few books in the schools are written in English or other foreign languages. These books are so rare and precious that teachers often lock them up, making them unavailable to curious children. Another major issue in Nepali education and home life is corporal punishment. According to Nepal law, guardians and teachers should not be held responsible for grievously hurting a child in the course of education or defense. Education can mean teaching anything from the ABCs to potty training. The Nepali laws that forbid violence and cruel treatment exempt “the act of scolding and minor beating to the child by his father, mother, member of the family, guardian or teacher for the interests of the child.” When we first hear or even see this firsthand, it is shocking and unimaginable. How could a child learn about compassion and general kindness when the people who are supposed to love and care for them the most are legally allowed to beat them? But we must understand that it is not our culture and it is not their fault. Most of these parents do love their children dearly, corporal punishment is just the only way they know how to teach. It was taught to them by their parents and teachers, and theirs before then, and so on. But just because it is the norm, doesn’t mean it can’t be changed.

Looking more closely at education, it is immediately noticeable that the small amount of opportunities available to Nepali men is enormously greater than those to Nepali women. Fewer than half the people in Nepal are illiterate and the amount of literate men is more than double that of women. There is a saying in Nepal that educating your daughter is like fertilizing your neighbor's crops. It does not benefit you in any way and is a waste of money. But this belief is greatly outdated. A child whose mother is educated is twice as likely to survive past the age of five. The social norm is that women don’t need an education because their responsibilities are in the house only. It is the woman’s duty to feed the kids, clean the house, take care of livestock or domestic animals, wash the dishes, and do the laundry. They also have to take care of their husband’s mother, brothers and sisters. Because of this and having the men as a priority for healthcare, Nepal is the only country in the world where women’s lifespan is shorter than men’s. When all the major decisions are made by Nepali men, from who the daughters will marry to whether they are taught to read or not, it is evident that most women in Nepal never get a say in their own future.

I chose education and women’s rights issues to focus on because it is clear that with the betterment of these problems comes the betterment of life. It is for this reason that I have chosen to support the Fulbari Project, the Room to Read Organization, the Cosmic Brontosaurus School, and the Himalayan Children Care Home. After months of searching for valid and hardworking organizations, these four have inspired me the most. As I said earlier, each program has a different mission to better the education and lives of children in Nepal.

Fulbari Project

The Fulbari project is working to create a center in Pokhara where teachers and parents can come to learn about the issues of corporal punishment and how to teach without hitting. They are also trying to get schools to require their teachers to go the center and complete various courses before working for them. My sister was actually the one who found the project. A family member who was friends with the creator of the project, Ram, recommended it to her. With Ram, my sister worked over a grant request that asked different embassies in Nepal for money to help build the center. After she told me about the work Ram was doing, I was intrigued. I’ve seen parents, teachers, even strangers hit children and each time I see it, I feel like I’m getting hit as well. I decided to meet with Ram and asked him about the work he’s doing and the funding needed. I immediately liked him. He was so enthusiastic about the project and I could tell he would work hard to complete it. He told me that right now, they are working on finding money to make the pathways wheelchair accessible and said that any money would help. I decided to give the project 20,000 rupees, the equivalent of about $240. This may not seem like a great amount of money, and doesn’t cover most of the costs for the wheelchair accessible pathways, but Ram was incredibly grateful and said the money would help greatly.

Room to Read

Room to Read is an organization that works to build libraries, provide books written in local languages, and send girls to school. They have built 3,000 libraries and 900 schools and have sponsored over 13,600 girls. Their teams speak the language, know the customs and laws, and understand the issues surrounding their various programs. This makes it possible for the workers to partner with the local community to complete a given project. This makes the community self-efficient. Instead of giving the village a fish, they are teaching them to fish themselves. Because I could not afford to build a whole school or library, I decided to sponsor a girl to go to school for a year for $250. Room to Read is a greatly respected organization that has done incredible work all over the world. Their main mission is to fight global poverty and they are doing this by attacking with education. There is no doubt that the organization has made great headway and it’s a great feeling knowing I could help out.

Cosmic Brontosaurus School

The Cosmic Brontosaurus School is a school run by Prem Kunwar. The school teaches foreigners the local languages, but there are several other projects Prem works on. Prem is from a village three days away from Pokhara. There he has built clean water stations and medical clinics to treat the villagers. He has also built a school for 200 children. The fees for each student to attend the school are $60 a year. Even though this seems incredibly low, there are so many families who cannot afford this and if they can, the sons get priority for the opportunity. I donated $300 to send five girls to the village school for a year. This money, besides allowing the girls to be educated, will help sustain the school by paying teachers salaries and paying for new books or materials. I have the opportunity in January to visit the village with Prem and greatly look forward to it. It would be an incredibly experience to see first hand what his compassion for his people has accomplished.

Himalayan Children’s Care Home

The Himalayan Children’s Care Home works to provide a better life with free education, health care, food and lodging for children from the Mustang region. Throughout rural areas in Nepal, parents engage their children in household activities such as fetching water, grazing the cattle, collecting firewood in all seasons, including the dead cold winter. At present the home has 45 children aged between 5 and 16. Some of them are orphans; some have only one parent while others are from financially poor families who are not in a position to afford any fees. Himalayan Children’s Care Home is aimed at providing a modern education and upbringing while trying to preserve the unique Tibetan culture and traditions that are currently on the brink of extinction. After meeting with the administration, they told me the fees to sponsor a girl to go to a school for a year. They brought out three girls who were hardworking and greatly deserving of the opportunity, Tenzing, Lhakpa, and Nyima. Tenzing is 11, speaks incredible English and was born in Tsarang. Lhakpa is a shy 10 year old from Marang. Lastly, Nyima is 7 and was born with  I was originally planning on only sponsoring two girls, but after hearing the fees were much lower than what I had originally thought, I decided to sponsor all three for $480. After meeting them and making the donation, the girls wrote me a letter of thanks and promised to email me about their schooling.

Lastly, I would like to thank everyone for the support, without you there would be ten more girls working every day instead of receiving the education that all children deserve. I am so grateful for your pure generosity. Thank you.

http://children-nepal.net.np/page.php?id=42

http://www.roomtoread.org/

http://hchmustang.org/

(Pictures coming soon)