Chandra

We would be introducing to you, one by one, the kids at the Hattigaunda Home to which your help and concern would bring a difference to.


Up first, introducing to you - Chandra (English name: Evan), aged 11, studying in Class 4.

Chandra is probably one of the Happy-go-lucky kind. He is mostly jovial, talking loudly and seen around with a happy grin on his face, spreading his joy to the ones around him.

Below is Chandra and his brother, Surya. Both are the smarty pants bros from what I observed. Chandra is a really smart boy. I told him my handphone number and birthdate once, and he could remember it like forever.

Anybody needs to get their pants sew? Not to worry, seamstress - Chandra in the house.

I believe the kids are not allowed to keep hard objects like needles or scissors. Hence, they have to substitute with razor blaze (which they hide in between the slots of their cubicles) or staple bullets as scissors or needles.

Also, the kids do not have or the home staff does not provide them with thread to sew their uniform when its tearing apart. Hence, creative Chandra eyes glowed instantly when we bought the kids "thick cotton thread" (those cotton balls that you used to make friendship band). Without much thoughts, he used it as the thread to fix up his worn-out pants.

Creativity I must say.

Also at the home, the kids does not have much good nutrients for their meals. Hence, it is only during festivals that they get to eat meat. During our stay there, we had the chance to experience what they meant by "meat" during 1 festival. (Not quite the roasted chicken or big portions that I was expecting like in Singapore during our festivals. In simple, the meat portion is minimal and more like 2 to 3 pieces of chicken cubes/ slices.)

Hence most of the time, their good meal times come when there are volunteers who can afford to bring them out for a picnic or a good meal at a restaurant.

Hence, 3 of us (Jurdica, Yashi and Chiayong) volunteering there brought the kids out to the restaurant that is within walking distance to their house as a treat for them.

The kids' favourite/standard picks on the restautant's menu were chicken pizza and Slice (which is a rather sweet mango syrup drink). About 70% of the kids ordered these.

Only 2 girls, Pusa and Kabita were daring enough to break free from the standard, and ordered Milk Shake! The kids' eyes were popping out and looking at the Milkshakes when the waiter served the drinks.

Also as the kids reallyyyyy seldom got the chance to have cold drinks (they have no fridge back at home), they all finished their "Slice" mango syrup drink within 3 minutes the beverage arrived and the food was far from being served.

Hence, we decided to buy them a "second round" of drinks. This time, the boys were smart enough to try the milkshakes.

Chandra's first take on his milkshake:

The boys enjoying their standard - chicken pizza.

Also as previously mentioned, we bought sports attire for them. Chandra's yellow house sports attire.

The sports attire are not considered expensive, costing around SGD10 for each set. However, when you multiply that by quantity 20, you will begin to understand why the Home was not able to afford buying this for the kids.

One point I was not able to fully understand was why did the school had to punish the students for not wearing the sports attire everytime there is sports lesson?

Back at nepal, Yashi and I each bought a little notebook, on which I told the kids to write anything about themselves, their age and what do they like.

I will republish what they wrote on my little black book.
This is what Chandra wrote:" I like table-tennis and, I like to ride cycle, I like Nepali music, I like Nepali movies, My favourite subject is science. I'll read story books, I like to visit Pokhara, I want to be a scientist."

Subsequently, me and Yashi will be updating more profiles of the kids at the home.

Also, we would like to say Thank to some of our friends and colleagues who have begin to express interest in helping the kids and volunteering! Your help will definitely be appreciated.
Special mention to Yileen from Markit for offering suggestions and also showing actual support, and also to Winson for helping with this blog setup.

I would be going to Nepal again in early October to make a small personal donation myself (where I will help pay abit of the school fees due for the children, paying directly to the school).
So if you are interested in joining me for the trip or would be in Nepal, please let me know!

Also, if there is other ways that you can help, please drop me a message and keep the help coming! If there are any encouragement words, or message you want to say to any of the kids, please feel free to make use of the wall for a quick shoutout, and I will relate your inspiring words to the kids when I get there.

Last by not least, to end the introduction of Chandra with some pictures:

14 Jul 09 Hattigaunda Home

"Education is the most powerful
weapon which you can use to change the world."

-Nelson Mandela

Objective of the Campaign

The objective of this campaign is to raise awareness for the education of unprivileged orphans in Nepal, and also to share with you our Nepal experience. Also, the important message is to create an awareness to help those who are less privileged in life.

Nonetheless, if there is anyway you would like to help these orphans, please drop me an email.

Currently, the orphanage pays SGD4,800 annually (minimum) in ensuring that the orphans at the home gets basic education:

School Fee per month per student = 1000 Nepalese Rupees (NPR)
No. of Orphans = 20
Total amount needed = 20 x 1000 x 12months = 240,000 NPR**

**240,000 NPR is equivalent to about SGD4,800. You can use a currency converter like CoinMill if you wish to calculate using the latest exchange rate.

According to the chairperson of the orphanage, they are currently 5 months overdue on their school fees.

Timeline:

In this blog, we hope to share with you our volunteering experience in Nepal, the lifestyle of kids at the orphanage home and also a little profile of each kid at the home.

In early October, I will be making another follow-up trip to Nepal where I will bring along some old clothes, books (that I personally want to give to the kids) and a small token of donation from me personally that will go to the children's education/school fees. Hence, if there is anything you would like to "giveaway", please let me know as I will be your best DHL deliveryman.

You make a difference:

1. There are too many ways that you can do something small, and bring big changes to the lives of these wonderful kids.



2. The kids have a passion for education and cherish what people give them. Be it teaching them Mathematics, or buying them school sportswear, they treasure every bit of effort in knowing that someone cares for and are willing to help them.
   
   
3. If you think whether your help (in anyway) is insignificant and doesn't really make a difference. Think again.
   

If you have any questions or ways that you want to help, or is interested about volunteering in Nepal, please approach me anytime. Alternatively, you can email me.

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A Brief Background of the Kids and their Home:

Hattigaunda Home is an orphanage situated around the north-western part of Kathmandu (the Capital of Nepal), in a district known as Hattigaunda.

The original name of the orphanage is "Orphan and Street Children Rehabiliation Center". However, I personally do not like this name, because there is absolutely nothing that the kids at the home need to rehab over. For the purpose of this blog, I am calling this home "Hattigaunda Home" instead.

We did not ask each of the kids how they ended up at the home, but we believed some of the kids might actually have parent (s). Below are some of the reasons why some of the kids ended up at the home:

• their parents died or escaped without them during the Nepalist Civil War



• their parents remarried at some point, leaving them behind



• they have parents incapable of taking care of them as a result of certain physical or mental conditions

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Hattigaunda Home

The orphanage is headed by its chairman, Makhan, who stays at the home with his wife and son.

In addition, they employ a man to cook for everyone at the home. He (aka "Cooking man") resides at the home with his wife and daugther as well.


Here's a photo of the double-storeyed, grey-coloured house they call home, which they rent for about SGD300 a month.

Some pictures of the well-maintained toilet on the second floor of the house, reserved only for the use of volunteers and staff. The children use their own "toilet-hole" outside the house within the compound.

The children occupy three rooms respectively:

• Seven of the older boys occupy the "Senior Room" on the first floor. (From the first picture below: There are two such double-deck beds in the Senior Room in which two bigger boys share each bed. There is no table in the room and they do everything on the bed- they sleep, read and do their homework on the thin mattress. )



• Six of the younger boys sleep in another room - the "Junior Room" - across the corridor.



• Seven girls sleep in the "Girls room" on the 2nd floor.

Space is not a luxury the kids enjoy. They wash their own dishes, do their own laundry, and clean up in the narrow compound for common use.

Remember the rent-a-box concept shops that rent out tiny cubicles of retail space for sometimes hundreds of dollars per month? Well, each child at the home is allocated a cubicle to keep his/her meagre possessions.

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A Normal Day at the Home

The kids rise between 5.30-6.00am to wash up, make their beds, do laundry and also revise their schoolwork. Often, they would already have finished most of their homework in school the previous day.
At approximately 8.30am, they will queue up for their Dal Phat, finish eating and promptly do their dishes afterwards. Curious as to what the Dal Phat is?


Dal Phat, which is their daily breakfast and dinner, is a meal of cooked plain rice sprinkled with a little vegetables and draped with diluted gravy. There is no meat or vegetables.

In between the day, the kids generally do not eat anything else. Though their school has recess breaks, the orphanage kids usually go hungry as the home cannot afford to buy snacks for them. On some days, the orphanage staff distribute handfuls of “snacks” (what looked like uncooked rice grains to me), an exception rather than the norm as often the kids have to contend with watching their classmates eat.

At approximately 9am, the kids will have dressed and gotten ready for school, which ends at 4pm. After the kids return home from school in the afternoon, they have their school books whipped out for revision in less than fifteen minutes. They do not go anywhere else after school. A frugal and disciplined lifestyle, no doubt.


Owing to a shortage of electricity in the country, there is also power loading every night. Thus the whole house will be in pitch black after 730pm.

For the children, a dinner of Dal Phat is served at around 7pm. A typical day ends at about 8.30pm for them, at which they head directly to bed.

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Giving is a Blessing


This punctured sole belonged to Kiran, one of the boys at the home. Kiran had worn this punctured shoe to school for a very long time, but no matter how he pleaded with staff at the home for a new pair of shoes, his request was always flatly rejected. They simply couldn't afford it.

Jurdica, one of our volunteers, bought Kiran a pair of new shoes much to his delight. The price tag of SGD10 - what would have been a very affordable purchase to most of us fortunate enough to be living in Singapore - paled in comparison to the look of happiness and gratitude on Kiran's face when he received his gift.

In addition, the Home could not afford to buy their kids the Sports Trekking Suits required for participation in sports/physical exercise lessons in school. Hence, on every Tuesday and Friday when such lessons are conducted, the kids will have no appropriate attire to wear. They will instead be forced to stand in front of the school body during assembly and receive a beating as punishment.

Hence, three of us volunteering at the home decided to sponsor the kids their first Trek Suits. That they were delighted and thrilled is an understatement. They repeatedly tried on their sportswear, unable to hide their happiness, excitement and gratitude.

It was in moments like these that we truly understood how "Giving is a Blessing" even though the amount spent might have been insignificant to us.


Should you be interested in volunteering in Nepal, I've found a document which lists various organizations in Nepal that could really use your help. If you're up for it, of course.

Orientation and Making Friends

We found out about the volunteer programme through a Nepalese organisation, paid a package fee of USD350 per person which included a short orientation course, sightseeing, food and lodging a 2-week stay in Nepal.

During our orientation in Kathmandu, Nepal's capital, we found new friends in three other volunteers: Amanda from Michigan, young Megan from London, and Durdica from Croatia. Durdica's name evolved into so many different pronunciations and spellings that by the end of the two weeks she was known as Judy, Julie, Georgica, etc. The ladies were awesome company.

Here's a snapshot of them. Hopefully their hair colors reveal as much of their nationalities as of the diversity of our group.



On the fourth and last day of our orientation course, a Tuesday afternoon, we parted ways and set forth respectively to our assigned orphanages where we were to spend the remainder of our two weeks in Nepal.

Durdica, Yashi and myself were allocated to an amazing orphanage in the vicinity of Kathmandu's city as the duration of our stay in Nepal did not give us the luxury of travelling to its more rural areas. The home was a 30 minutes drive from the city.

With that, we said our goodbyes to Amanda and Megan. Hope you are having fun in Chitwan if you read this, Amanda!

11 Jul 09 - Beginning

The trip to Nepal began, 11 Jul 09 to 26 July 09, nothing much planned on our itinerary.

Often, lowering your expectations will bring you surprises. And so we did, with minimal expectations about which tourist attractions to see, what to buy, where to go, how things will go at the Orphanage, living conditions there etc etc etc.

With that, we embarked on our "backpacking trip" to Kathmandu for 2 weeks. And yes, I would say its the most enriching trip I had thus far.