Sibjan Chaulagain's important work developing communication of weather, markets news, disease management and more for rural farmers in Nepal has been recognised by Sweden Social Entrepreneur Forum as they invited him to be one of only eight selected participants worldwide for an intensive training program to further develop healthy social impact business initiatives. We are super proud of Sibjan, who has been contributing to our projects in so many ways over several years, including but not limited to: teaching our children, implementing computer labs in rural schools, implementing sanitation and water projects in rural villages as well being one of our emergency response team during the 2015 earthquake!

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We are well on the way with our plans for 2 school rooms and 3 (different) houses, designed by Abari, that will be built in Sindhulpalchok with Team Nepal's overseeing while Abari team facilitate on the job training so that we continue to expand the knowledge of safe rebuilding in earthquake impact areas. In progress is bamboo planting in local community forests to give local villages the resilient bamboo species best for building with. Full details of the project coming soon!

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After the devastating damage from the 2015 earthquake it is such a relief to see our buildings' repairs progressing. We are thankful that we still have the Domo tents as our temporary home as our buildings are essentially being rebuilt from the inside out. It looks quite possible we will be inside the buildings for Dashain festival in October, although we will still have a lot more work to do – flooring, plumbing, painting – but step by step our Home is becoming Home once again. We had a celebration in July as Saroja Thapa, our current manager, married her beloved – she will remain manager as her new family lives nearby and supports her continued work.

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After several months of building and training local villagers in various adjoining VDCs in earthquake resilient building techniques the school rooms are now truly being used for their end purpose – safe and secure rooms for education of children! A big thank you to Sathsathai Mundi foundation with whom we collaborated with and to Abari team who provided the majority of training and design and of course a big thank you to all the villager participants who laboured and trained and now we hope will go out to build their own homes more safely. Next school projects starting soon!

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With our expanding family (we now have 33 children & 5 live in mothers) our daily needs have been also expanding. The last several months we have created a covered dining room that adjoins the kitchen, enabling expansion of the kitchen facilities and we have added in a chimney so that we can use indoor fire cooking instead of outside. The covered dining room doubles also as a bigger study room space for our dedicated students! Additionally we built in a bigger bio-gas facility that uses the pee & poop of our cows and buffalos to create methane gas that we can use for cooking. Since the installation we have used 70% less purchased LPG gas! This is really helpful as we aim to be self-sustaining as much as we can and the methane gas for cooking and the natural organic fertiliser that is also an outcome is such a help by reducing costs and creating a supply of what we really need.

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Our Children at Bhaktapur Children Home are now cosy & secure ready for the monsoon as our building continues to be repaired - thank you Paulo & your friends for the work helping to make that happen! 

I just love it when helping hands come together to make a difference - big thank you to Paulo & his friends who came out today and revitalised our overtent, including now a cover over our dining table - at our Bhaktapur Orphan Home - in time for the monsoon coming soon! Our Home repairs are continuing well but will not be ready for the children to move in before the monsoon so now the children will be safe and dry as the repairs continue

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The first example stone masonry earthquake resilient Home Building is almost completed (in Timal, Kavre), inspired by Abari and completed by local masons in the village. New examples are in planning to begin after monsoon in Sindhulpalchok District with TEAM Nepal & Abari. If we can give healthy resilient examples and trainings to show how safer buildings can be accomplished with local materials then perhaps it can inspire many more villagers to build safer. Meanwhile LaliMaya is happy with her new family home!

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Although progress slowed as a consequence of heavy monsoon rains, the school buildings have almost been completed and will be ready for use very soon! There were some changes to the roof design dictated by Stichting Sathsathai Mundi, however in reality we have lovely new school buildings that will be safe, dry and cosy for the young student to study and develop within - for that we are very happy to be a donor in this project. The stripes in the painting on the buildings highlight the
earthquake resilient reinforcements. More building in the planning stages to start after monsoon!

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One afternoon end of March we were enjoying the afternoon at Annapurna Children Home when a storm arrived, at first it was fun with the big hail stones but then we saw how much it damaged all our crops, flowers and destroyed the goat shed on our new land. However thankfully with hard work and help we replanted crops and flowers, and built again the goat shed (Thanks Lukas & Bishnu!) so several weeks later our crops are flourishing and our flowers beginning to bloom - thank you everyone for your continued support & help!

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Very rewarding few days visiting with our microcredit villages and talking with the women participating - our 1st group (now 11 yrs progress) experiencing their empowerment & confidence at their regular Board meeting, our 2nd group that has great community bond & quietly uplifting their lives, and visiting our new location and 3rd group for the first time ... each visit inspiring, heart touching and reminder that with support, encouragement and provision of education and small loans that lives can truly transform in positive ways! Thank you to Shila Pandey & Ram Kc for your continued dedication to this. And big thank you to everyone who has been a contribution to this real change in lives project!

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