Saturday, October 4, 2008

Hope Newsletter for October 2008




...uplifting disabled & disadvantaged people of Nepal

Postal address: Tamghas, Gulmi, Nepal
Email: ganga_nep063@yahoo.com
Phone: 079 690 477 Website: www.hopegulmi.tk
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NEWSLETTER October 2008

Namaste from Nepal!

We want to update you with some members' rehabilitation stories, our plan to start building a new Centre and also our effort to become more self- sustainable.
(1) Ganga Ghimire is 11 yrs old and from the Chairwoman's village, 35 km from Tamghas and 4 hours by jeep which usually carry more than 20 people on roof and inside. She has been cataract blind in both eyes since birth. Yet she always seems to be able to smile beautifully at any small attention!

Ganga in village 2007 On her way to surgery 2008 Lumbini Eye Hospital team

Though diagnosed 5 years old ago and referred for operation, nothing was done for her until last week as she has no caring parents. The main reason was poverty and basic lack of bus fares to get to hospital…a cost which can derail most good intentions.

So at last Hope Centre paid those bus fares and sent her for operation and fitting of intraocular lens which cost $200 NZ using the best vacuum suction system and a Fred Hollows lens made in Nepal. A simpler surgery was offered her for free, but the doctors found that Ganga has some heart irregularities which meant she could not have full anesthesia which is normal for children.

The vision in firts eye is now 1/60 which is not perfect but she can count three fingers at a distance of 1 meter. And she can now walk independently without another assistant to guide her.
Her second eye was operated two days ago and lens inserted and this time she has perfect vision. We were told that good glasses may further improve her sight. So the total operation cost is $400 + $200 travel cost for the 250 km from Gulmi by jeep and bus to Lumbini Eye Hospital, a fine place which was set up and funded from Canada.

Maybe a NZ Rotary Club would like to adopt Ganga Ghimire and place her in good boarding school so she can catch up to other school kids and really make progress towards being another success story?

In fact she has had little formal education being left most days at home idle and of little interest to anybody.

A year's boarding school fees will cost about $1000 which includes food and bed.

(2) Maya Rana (age 16) had polio as a baby which left her with a very floppy ankle joint and very little muscle power in her left leg. So she has struggled to walk all these years.

Last week our field worker took her to HRDC, Nepal's best disabled children's' hospital in Kathmandu where she was assessed after X-rays and will be admitted for surgery on November 14th. She is being helped with funds from the Abilis Foundation in Finland.
Thankyou Abilis!

This operation will cost only NZ $100 which is the subsidised price for the poor and with travel cost another $200 is needed for her to go by microvan from Gulmi to hospital with her family member and for extra medicine and orthoses.
She must stay 2 weeks in hospital to allow the correction pins to be safely inserted and wound to heal without infection. She also will require special shoes and a plastic leg brace to help her walk nicely. Maya is finishing her schooling next year so then we will plan to help her make a career in sewing, set up a shop or any other training she chooses.
Maya would like a longterm sponsor as she has parents who do not care for her.

Maya first assessed in 2006 At HRDC in 2008 in Kathmandu Maya gets careful checkup by volunteer Australian and English physiotherapists of all muscle power prior to surgery on her ankle

(3) Building Hope Centre
Some great news is that Ganga's cousin and uncle are donating some good land close to Tamghas for the permanent premises for Hope Centre. This land is valued at $8,000- $10,000 and as soon as the land is legally transferred to Hope we will lay some foundation walls for an accessible, circular building 40 feet (12 meters) in diameter.

Ganga and cousin Prem and uncle Thapa who have donated the land for new Centre

We need to start to fundraise for the first floor to be built with 16 concrete pillars and with locally-made bricks and between them.
The cost of first floor completed with slab floor and we be about $25000, and with furniture, paint and carpet an extra $10,000.
We will be installing "goba gas" which is biogas made from buffalo dung.
So I want to ask you all to share my vision that we can open Hope Centre for business with 1 year.
Can we get your muscle behind this project?
Can we trade our local coffee to raise our building cost?
Note: We have calculated that if we can sell 1000 kgs of organic coffee at $4 per 100 gms per pack, or if 20 Rotary Clubs can sell 500 packets of coffee, we can raise the finance for this new building!!
Dan needs plastering to correct his feet

(4) Organic Coffee
Hope Centre needs to become self-sustainable and more financially-secure if we are to expand and reach out to many other needy disabled kids and youth in our district. So we want to utilise a great local product, organic coffee, which will mean that this whole district is, in effect, contributing to Hope Centre.
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FOR SALE ORGANIC COFFEE
grown 1300 metres high up in the Himalayas! As exported to Japan and Korea
Please support the building of the new Hope Disability Centre in Nepal by buying organic coffee grown locally in the same district of Gulmi!
We can send you 100 gms packets of 100% Arabica roasted organic coffee that have been approved with Japanese and Australian organic certification.
Costing $4 per packet your help will allow many Nepali disabled kids and youth to "get a life"!

To order contact: Ganga Rayamajhi Chairwoman Hope Centre
ph: 0977-9847105111 ganga_nep063@yahoo.com



(5) Sleeping Bags
We also can selling good quality down feather sleeping bags which are 85% down,15% feather and weighing 1.6 kgs with 770 gms of down.
They keep you warm at temperatures below zero which we are selling at $215 each delivered in NZ.
If we sell just 250 bags we can raise enough funds complete the construction of the first floor!!
So if 10 Rotary Clubs could sell 25 sleeping bags we have raised the building fund!
FOR SALE 85% Down/15%, feather sleeping bags , vests and jackets

-10 degree bags $215 -5 degree bags $170 Vests $140

(6) Disabled friendly scooter
I enjoyed my visit to NZ and am now excited to soon be receiving my scooter with its two extra back wheels. Thankyou Rotary and also Rob Gould who filemd our story for BBC World Challenge 2007!

I will be sending you a photo later when I am having driving lessons and wearing my safety helmet! There are very few cars in Tamghas so it is easy to drive a scooter here but our highways are very dangerous and without concrete borders or fences and several thousand feet drops to the raging rivers below!
Sadly, yesterday, a bus accident on main road from Kathmandu, killed 17 passengers when the bus slipped off the road down the mountain into the river. After heavy rain today a landslide killed 2 more people just near this town.
This is almost normal daily news in Nepal!

(6) Vote in BBC World Challenge 2008!!

Last year Ganga visited the "sister" Hope Centre in Kashmir which was selected in 2008 as a finalist of 12 from 700 projects around the world to be in this year's BBC World's global competition for projects in developing countries.
But to win the $20,000 US first prize, or $10,000 US second and third prize, votes must be placed online by registering at http://www.theworldchallenge.co.uk/ and then voting!
They will require 20,000 votes to win!
Screening and voting for this BBC World story starts on October 1st and runs to November 21, 2008.

SO HELP US PLEASE BY E-MAILING IN YOUR VOTE!
…AND SEND THIS MESSAGE ON TO YOUR FRIENDS
!

THANKYOU All Hearing aid DONORS!

A local man who had persistent tinnitus for 5 years has had great relief since his in-ear-canal hearing aid was fitted at Hope Centre this week. And this was affordable for him due to the recycled hearing aids from NZ and Australia.
So thanks to all donors at Hearing Associations of NZ and others!


(7) SEWING CLASSES: One of our sewing trainees, Numa, is pleased to see her first shirt and school dress fitted to another disabled girl from a poor family of a remote part of Gulmi. Hope Centre is paying her school fees and helping her mother with goat business through a micro-loan so that she can pay for her daughter's education in future!
Thanks again Abilis in Finland for project funds to run this loan scheme.


Namaste!

Ganga Rayamajhi (Chairwoman) Shobha Rani Gharti (Secretary)
Tara Bhusal (Treasurer) Janardhan Ghimire ( Coordinator)
Santosh Chhetri (Office
)


Ganga in her village home with her 100 year old grandfather whom we have fitted with a hearing aid at age 99!
… and her other grandfather ! Ganga's sisters collecting food for buffalo

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NEWS from Hope Disability Centre

Namaste from the staff and board at Hope Centre in Tamghas, Gulmi, Nepal!