With delight I shared Dashain Festival with our children and family at our Bhaktapur Self Sustaining Children home in Sipadol village - For our non Nepal friends this is a special festival celebrated every year with the emphasis on families coming together and sharing blessings of well being and abundance while enjoying special food and laughter. There is also many "Ping" (translation = swing) made of bamboo especially for these festival days and there is always a lot of joy in the swinging and watching the swinging too! The swings only last some days and are generally built in a communal space for everyone to enjoy so their is a lot of excitement to find good ones and swing happily - we found two in our village today. It is heart touching to spend time with these children who have been a part of my life the past 10 years. Having watched these small children evolve and grow into teenagers is truly a gift, and the journey continues!

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Nepal is niet meer zo in het nieuws na de aardbeving van 2015 maar er is nog veel in beweging. De na-effecten van de aardbeving en de grensblokkade door India zijn nog altijd groot. De inflatiecijfers liggen officieel tussen de 7-10 % terwijl die in Nederland al jaren rond de 1% zit.
De prijzen van bouwmaterialen, land, levensmiddelen en school zijn daarbovenop schrikbarend omhoog gegaan met jaarlijkse prijsverhogingen tot 25%.

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A wee glimpse into everyday life at our Bhaktapur Children Home on a Saturday, haircuts for the boys, a visit to the nearby Temple, some rice paddy planting and then hanging out talking and laughing and generally enjoying being together in our big family all together. We do things that any other Nepali family will be doing – simply we have a bigger family which is helpful for football playing!

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We are delighted that we have new beds – we did have to paint and repair but the basic structures are solid wood and good quality. Plus we now have all new mattresses and sheets and blankets. This will truly make a huge and positive difference in how we sleep and also a sense of security and peace. Thank you to everyone who made this possible!

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First day back at school for 2075 (Nepali year!) for most of our children - our youngest two and our children above class 10 all start back on Sunday. Today was a flurry of getting prepared, finding ties and socks but finally everyone was ready and Sarada gave everyone a blessings and reminder to utilise the school time well this year! We all felt very proud and heartfully happy as they walked out the door to attend their classes. We consider a good education as a vital and important tool to enable our children to gain opportunities to live healthy adult lives after they leave our Home so we do all that we can to ensure they maximise the opportunities that we provide.

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Education and skills training empowers a person and is in our opinion one of the main pillars to alleviate poverty in our world. We can take it for granted in our western countries how much we have available to our children and youth and our involvement with schools and colleges here in Nepal and being part of the support to evolve them into facilities that can provide a range of education and skills has been enlightening and heart touching. In April 2018 Kira Kay proudly joined the Melamchi Valley College campus for the opening of our two room facility that will provide library and workshop space for the college students. Local builders participated in the 'on the job' training provided by Hands with Hands via Abari (a Nepalese eco friendly building company) to build the two room facility using local materials – clay turned into compressed earth bricks and bamboo for internal roof truss and ceiling material. We look forward to continued collaboration with the college to provide future skills training to the youths of the District.

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Our involvement in Nepal (now 18 years!) has truly informed us how much education makes a difference - to individuals, their community and the entire country. The past few days Kira attended the handover ceremony of Terse higher Secondary school in Talamarang village, Sindhulpalchok district. The celebrations included beautiful dancing and singing from our students and also some of our teachers! It brings us joy and heartfelt smiles to see these facilities now ready for the new school year to provide a safe place for children to learn and teachers to teach. We have joined hands with Terse SecondarySchool since there was only 3 classrooms in 2001 providing education up to class 5 and being part of the development to evolve the school over the years to provide education up to class 12. Hands with Hands has helped to build classrooms and develop sustainability plus we supported during the earthquake their temporary facilities for three years and now with the help of Carritas NGO they have new built classrooms and we have repaired some of the earlier rooms we had built to make an extraordinary education facility to go forward in 2075! Blessings and good wishes to everyone! We look forward to our continued collaboration to further the education and empowerment of the children and youth in these communities and to give teachers good reasons to engage their passion for teaching! A big thank you to Neel Shahi, TEAM Nepal, Rajan Lamichhane, Bikash Shahi, Krishna Dhungana and and many others who have really contributed their hearts into their communities to ensure education security for their children and the children still to come.

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Under the guidance of Neel Shahi & TEAM Nepal our children continue to evolve and mature and of course develop culturally appropriate life skills during school holidays! Neel can be frequently found in the early mornings encouraging the children to engage actively in our organic farm and gardens! Oh and Neel's regular encouragement of the children to study well and utilise their opportunities ???? Recently Neel added a fish pond which we hope will provide fresh fish for our home as well some extra to sell locally for a small cash stream. Meanwhile the children enjoy some relaxing time while school holidays are underway before the next year of school begins.

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We wish all our friends and families a very wonderful, joyful and happy Nepali New Year 2075! Our children from Annapurna Children home celebrated the New Year today with the 2nd year students from Manipal Medical Teaching college - who we thank very much for making such a nice program and fun for our children. Being such a big family means we have the opportunity to play many games easily ???? The Manipal Medical College is a consistent support for our Home and has provided support year after year for our medical needs as well we provide a good opportunity for the students to practice their community medicine skills!

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1- Nepal acties 2017
In 2017 zijn er door vrienden van onze stichting verschillende acties georganiseerd waar we erg blij mee waren. We noemen er hier enkele. Indien je zelf ook denkt aan het opzetten van een actie laat het ons weten dan denken we met jullie mee. Mooi om jullie zo als achterban te mogen hebben en ontzettend bedankt voor al jullie inspanningen!

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