A reproduction of a blog post on his blog, by our Education Program Director, Dorje Gurung, about our fundraising drive.
Establishing a Fishery as a Social Business for Education project to finance rural Nepalese children's education and upgrading the school's teaching resources and infrastructure.
Coming from a low socioeconomic background in Nepal, even as a primary school student in Kathmandu,
I dreamt of
making a difference, through education, both to myself and to others in Nepal.
Ever since realising the first part of my of my dream--beating the odds to graduate from secondary school, getting
degrees from tertiary education institutions abroad and pursuing a professional career as an
international teacher around the world--I have been acutely aware of not having realised the second part of my dream.
After over two decades abroad, I had finally decided to
return home to work towards fulfilling the second part of my dream. However, following an incident in the school cafeteria, not only was I fired from my job, losing thousands of dollars in the process, I was also
jailed for allegedly insulting Islam.
Luckily, my friends around the world launched a
massive campaign, and after only four days of initiating it, I was
freed.
Following the ordeal, I was more determined than ever to see through the second part of my dream.
During my time in Qatar, I came to see, hear and read about the
exploitationabuse and
sufferings of hundreds of thousands of Nepalese (and other Asian) migrant labourers in Qatar. I met a number of them
languishing in jail as well.
I discovered that the main reason for their ending up in Qatar and being exploited was their
lack of education. They came from low socio-economic background, just like myself, but unlike me, they had lacked opportunities for education. Lack of education combined with poverty and lack of employment opportunities at home had driven them to Qatar.
I realised that to enable nepalese children to have the freedom to dream and chart their own destinies we must provide
high quality education at home.
Returning to Nepal, I ran a successful fundraising campaign and raised
over thirty thousand dollars.
Following the campaign, my friend
Jayjeev and I have been running
COMMITTED, an NGO dedicated to implementing holistic development works through education-related projects, project that improve infrastructure, resources and quality of education at
Raithane School in Thangpalkot village, Sindupalchowk.
To make sure that the education program is sustainable, COMMITTED has initiated a
Social Business for Education project: a
Fishery, with funds (totalling about US$20,000) raised through other means. But, we need an additional
US$45,000!
Once fully set up, a significant part of the profits from the business will cover all the expenses of the school. The remaining profits will be used for community development projects as per the Community Development Plan (CDP) the community devises with help from COMMITTED.
In the mean time, additional funds are required for
resources, teacher training, infrastructure upgrades and other expenses, funds we were not able to raise in June's campaign.
An additional
US$15,000 is required to upgrade the school library and provide library management skills training to the school staff, to provide enhanced support for Science, English and Arts curriculum. A further
US$28000 to complete the new school building, to upgrade the classrooms, to set-up rainwater harvesting system and to address WASH (Water Sanitation and Health) issues. And finally, not unlike all other government schools in Nepal, Raithane struggles to pay
teachers' salaries. In order to pay a decent wage to four school-employed teachers for the next two years an additional
US$12000 is necessary.
COMMITTED therefore is aiming to raise a total of
US$100,000 to provide free, quality and sustainable education to the children of Raithane School in Thangpalkot, Sindhupalchok, Nepal. These funds will support the education of 350+ students attending Raithane School in Thangpalkot VDC, a community with a population of over 3000--education that will give them the freedom to dream and chart their own destinies, just as it did for me!
We are looking for interested individuals to help us raise these funds by being a team member in this campaign. If you are interested,
click here or on the image below for instructions on how to join.
Fundraising Websites - Crowdrise
