We give heartfelt thank you to Ms Devika Gautam for her very kind gift of Eye checkup camp at our Annapurna Children Home. Every child and mothers’ eyes were checked in a safe and hygienic way! Devika's BM/TPB Foundation Eye Care center provided all the technical support. It is truly a blessing and gift to have our children's eyes properly tested and checked, especially in this time where we have to do so much online study with technology. And thank you Devika for giving our children inspiration what career choice they might have as well! Thank you from our heart to your whole team. We are particularly encouraged when successful Nepalese visit and support our children as it gives them culturally appropriate inspiration for their own future lives.

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With great JOY we celebrated the wedding of our eldest daughter Aasha. “Dearest Aasha, we are so proud of all your achievements, graduating school, completing your nursing qualification, and finding a permanent job nursing in the hospital and now this next big step in your adult life - marriage. We all wish the very best for you and your husband. We celebrate you and shower you and your beloved with love and good wishes!”

Aasha was one of our first children at our Annapurna Self Sustaining Children Home. We have supported her through childhood education and then 3+ years of nursing training. Now we witness Aasha successful and respected in her career and embarking upon marriage with a lovely man from the local village. We truly feel a sense of full circle, especially as since her nursing graduation Aasha has returned and directly inspires our other children, always available for medical support and joining our festive days and helping out on her days off. This is truly a sustainable outcome!

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Happy Deepawali to all our friends we wish you and your families a wonderful celebration! We share here some pictures from our Laxmi puja, with our beautiful Laxmi's. This is one part of Nepal’s major festival days that celebrates connection and reminds of life’s abundance that we need to invite into our lives. This ritual engages the youngest girls, representing innocence and curiosity, to walk barefoot through the blessing pathway to create a doorway for Laxmi, the goddess of abundance in Hindu tradition, to enter our Home. Plus it is a wonderful occasion to feast, dance and enjoy together!

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Being prepared for the real world, it is not going to be easy during these complicated times. However, you will make it, with all the hard work you have put in all this past year, we are sure. Super Congratulations to all of you Shubas, Sharmila & Sadhna for successfully completing your SEE examination - we truly wish you the very best in your next step in life. In Nepal having passed SEE exams allows so many more employment possibilities for our children’s future. This is why we make it a priority to tutor and support our children to obtain this possibility that opens doors for their future life. It is also why you are donors and sponsors are so important as without your financial support we could not offer the extra tuition and guidance that our children, many who have had trauma, require to master this important step in their life.

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On the occasion of Teej, an annual women festival in Nepal, our mothers and girls dress up, make up, dance and celebrate, bringing some joy during the ongoing lockdown time in Nepal. So uplifting to see their joyful faces and energy. Teej is a special women celebration festival in Nepal where women fast, pray/worship and feast, dance and honour each other. This year our girls fully enjoyed dressing up, doing make-up for each other and truly celebrating. We really needed some uplift energy during these times of lockdown continuing in Nepal. We wish all our sisters around the world blessings & love on this special occasion of Teej

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We are so very happy to congratulate Sawaswati on her graduation as an Army cadet! “Dearest Sawaswati, may you have a fulfilling and successful career and make deep friendships and discover your strengths and gifts in your life ahead. We love you and we are proud of you!”

Sawaswati was one of our first children at Annapurna Self Sustaining Children Home and we have supported her through school education and completion of the SEE and most recently through the Army officer training academy. With this opportunity Sawaswati now has a real career and opportunity to create a successful life for herself. We are also delighted that she continues to give back to our Home with her time and energy and of course joining us for “Family” festivals. It is with real joy that we witness our children graduate into responsible adult lives – this is the outcome we aspire to with all our children.

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Our Self-Sustaining approach is so helpful in this time of lockdown - stay safe and healthy everyone!  
We are very thankful for our self-sustaining initiatives that have created our farm and therefore a good food supply. It has also meant that our older children can get outside and help us with our gardening and gain outdoor exercise and sunshine as well has very useful life skills while we are still experiencing lockdown in Nepal - the lockdown seems like it will continue all throughout June! But we are happy to report we are safe and healthy and very much appreciate the hard work of Sarada and all our mothers to keep our children in good health and spirits.

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Like everyone around the world we are confined to being "home" and taking care to wash hands and be healthy during this COVID-19 virus time. We are very HAPPY???? that we already have a good system of hygiene and cleaning :-) Plus with children in different ages we can continue home school work as older children teach the younger ones. But the very best is our 3 acres farm that is providing us with vegetables and grains - today we were harvesting (as farming is allowed as an essential service) and of course our cows giving us milk and curd - we are so lucky! The activity of harvesting is good for our children learning essential life skills as well some fun and physical exercise. We hope that all our friends and families stay healthy and safe during this time. Thank you to everyone who supports us, without your help we would not feel so safe and comfortable in this time if crisis.  

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Our beautiful girls performed several cultural dance pieces at the Pokhara Industrial Festival - we are so proud that we can give back to our community with our heart centered gifts ❤ Cultural dance is very important in Nepalese community and our children – girls and boys – receive regular dance and singing lessons to develop their skills and to gain the understanding and wisdom that such cultural arts convey.

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2006 began a journey of women (in Jutpani village, Chitwan, Nepal) being supported by HandswithHands to find their empowerment through a combination of microcredit, skills training and encouraging mentoring. This photomontage captures glimpses of the evolution of this Shree Uday Savings & Credit cooperative 2006 to 2019. This project began with 25 participants and now involves hundreds. Children have grown up and now are participating and contributing members. Shree Uday Savings & Credit Cooperative is now an important part of their local village community and recognised as a positive example in the District by the Chitwan Cooperative office. Initiated by Kira Kay; facitited by Shila Pandey & Ram KC; funded by HandswithHands and empowered by the many women in Jutpani village ????