A short update from our Chitwan meetings – again, very delayed with everything because of car/driver problems but we managed to do what we needed.
We had a meeting with Krishna (trustee) which went well, discussed street children etc. Then we met with Hamro Ghar – the children’s home over there. Very different experience from other children’s homes we’ve seen. There are 14 children there at the moment but soon they are moving to a new building and there will be 70 children there. The children’s ages at the moment vary from 5 to 16 years old. All the children sleep in one room on the floor, the person running the home has got a very nice room to herself and also the cook – both have proper big beds. There’s also a huge meeting hall used only occasionally for training or meetings. Most children have been there since the home was set up 9 years ago and the last one came to the home almost 5 years ago. They don’t have any additional training/education programme for the children, but they do have a lot of community support. Most of the things at the home have been donated to them by local people and businesses. The home is okay but is being run in an old fashioned way where the individual needs of the children don’t seem to be important. The children are safe, have shelter, food and education at a local school but nothing else.
After that we went to see the flat where Jackie and David lived – a really spacious and beautiful place, probably one of the best I’ve seen in Nepal. They stayed at the house of the principal of the school and we met the principal as well – so got some feedback from their placements too. The family were really nice and very grateful for our support.
After that we made our way to the national park and are relaxing here for a bit. It’s absolutely amazing here. I’m doing all the catch up emails with everyone now to conclude a few things when we get back to Kathmandu. We still have about 5 meetings in Kathmandu – we’re going there tomorrow.
