Wally's Visit to Nepal Dispatch
June 9, 2015 – A Day Spent Visiting CORE Projects in the Kathmandu Valley
I have been on the Board of Directors for CORE International since it was founded in 2006. Since its inception CORE, Creating Opportunity and Resources for the Excluded, had sought to foster self - reliance and development for people who are the most on the “outside” of social, religious and economic support in 21st century Nepal.
Frances
CORE has been based in Canada at the Berg Adventures office in Canmore, Alberta. In Nepal, long time Kathmandu and Khumbu resident, Frances Klatzel, who also hails from Alberta, is the on the ground with her all volunteer Nepalese staff to serve the needs of the poorest of the poor, in this country where so many have so little.
Micro – finance, education for children that would otherwise not have access to public or private schools, and leadership, personal empowerment and community skills for women have been the benchmark programs that CORE has initiated and is executing. We are proud of our history over these past nine years. Seeing where our projects were left after the recent earthquakes was our mission today.
It was a hot day: 38 degrees Celsius in the pre-monsoon Kathmandu Valley. Frances and I, along with a driver and different CORE community facilitators we met along the way, spend time visiting some CORE project locations. The needs created by the disaster will not change the long term goals of developments and sustainable quality lifestyles of Nepal’s most excluded populations, but finding folks, assessing damage, injury and emotional trauma is an important next step.
CORE has purchased and delivered more than 2 tons of aluminum siding, in manageable size sheets to remote villages that have been devastated by the earthquake. The village in Bungamati, in the Kathmandu Valley, is one such CORE area. The women of this are were already working with us and they requested the tin. We purchased the sheets in Nepal, supporting the local economy here rather than relying on outside relief shipments.
These tin sheds, made by local people on their own property, have floors, one of the main requests of the women in this hard hit area of Bungamati. Prior to the delivery of these supplies the village people were living 60 to a plastic tarp shelter that sat directly on the muddy ground. The villagers feel they are getting ready for monsoon with these new shelters which they are building for themselves.
What it is like inside one of the temporary houses build for monsoon that we have assisted the people of Bungamati to build themselves.
Most of the houses in the village of Bungamati were completely destroyed.
The typical Newari style houses that people live in in Bungamati are particularly vulnerable because many of them have cantilevered floors on upper levels
The destruction in Bungamati
Our vegetable program. We provide credit for saving and loans in order to help people plant crops. We were checking today to see if rice was being planted on time in some of the locations we serve.
CORE offers scholarship programs for children in the valley whose families have no funds for the school supplies they would be required to purchase even in public schools in Nepal. These children would have no way to begin their education without CORE.
At the Kalimanhari CORE school
These are children of laborers who work near the airport. They are getting a foundation that will allow them to continue getting education in public or private schools if they get the opportunity
Fun at school