August 02-23, 2021
AUGUST 2021, UPDATES
On August 2, we finally landed at Kathmandu airport, after one year and a half of forced absence due to the pandemic.
It has been 3 weeks full of emotions and meetings with other European and Nepali associations, with whom we will share some new project, within the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022.
Our Kindergarten
In line with our policy of small but significant steps, this will concern collaborations and support on important projects following the three main axes of our Status: scholarship and gender’s equality, sport and music practicing. These projects will be managed by associations and NGOs highly experienced and financially sound.
It will be the best way for us to gain experience, have immediate feedback on projects and make any corrections in a timely and effective manner.
Schools in Nepal have been closed for several months, operating only through online learning.
Nepalese media insisted a lot on the pandemic and on the risks due to the gatherings: this news discouraged parents from taking their children to the kindergarten, even if not specifically forbidden.
Even our Kindergarten can now finally start its activity by welcoming more and more children and activating the canteen service, so far unused precisely because the few children who accessed the KG were left for no more than two/three hours a day.
We painted the wall near the Kindergarten to get it more playful, cheerful and colorful, involving the Himali School’s hostel children in the “decoration” of the corridor leading to our classroom, embellished with new paper works made by our staff.
We have implemented the initial equipment of the Kindergarten with new games and didactic material for children.
The puzzle, with the names of all CampoBase supporters, is now on this wall leading to the entrance to the Kindergarten: it is a series of 9 photos by our Stefano Gandolfi, with children from different parts of the world and completed with the motto: All the children of the world have the right to education.
The new Music Room
Given the partial standby of the Kindergarten, we decided not to waste precious time and we set up the Music Room, a completely new project started on the very first days of September.
The room, a former and abandoned “reading room”, has been completely emptied and cleaned up. The books, dusted off, divided by subject have been conveniently placed in another room by Kalpana and Prakash, our tireless handyman.
Now, we have a beautiful reading room and a brand new Music Room, suitably soundproofed with cardboard and egg cups and embellished with a beautiful and colorful “graffiti on sheet”.
On september 2, the Music Room started to host the music lessons that Sagar will give to the students of Himali Boarding School, both boys and girls.
Support to DREAM NEPAL'S
Youth Project
One of the most significant people we met in these 3 weeks was undoubtedly Marina Portabella, CEO of the NGO DREAM NEPAL. Marina is a friend, a force of nature with over 30 years of humanitarian experience of concreteness behind her, a clear vision of things and the “vice” of translating a good idea into a project, without wasting time.
In addition to taking care of 52 children aged 3 to 15, children of prisoners, taking them out of prison and giving them a “normal children’s life” and enormous potential opportunities for their future, Marina thinks – not from today – about when children will be adolescents.
Marina’s idea is a new Home for a Youth Project, to welcome these girls and boys from 16 years old, pay them college and university and find them a job, to partially finance their studies and teach them to become autonomous, step by step.
It could be a franchise shop, opened by Dream Nepal and managed by the guys themselves, in order to make them totally independent adults within 3 – 4 years.
(In this photo, Malahome 1)
CampoBase will be with Marina in this new project, providing for a part of the total budget.
For more info on Dream Nepal, please visit: https://www.dreamnepal.org/
Collaboration with Apeiron and Casa Nepal
Apeiron is an Italian NGO based in Cesena; its sister, Casa Nepal has been working for many years in the Country to help women victims of domestic violence – and their children.
When these women end their project in Casa Nepal and they are ready to come back to their own lives, a Kindergarten could be useful to take care of their children.
We have guaranteed Casa Nepal to welcome these children, free of charge.
For more info on Casa Nepal, please visit: https://apeironitalia.it/project/casa-nepal/
One shot support to Khem’s
Street Children
Khem is a former street boy, now 35 years old: sponsored at the time by a Swiss woman he was able to study and redeem himself. Now it is Khem who takes care of a dozen children thanks to the Twin Otters Foundation (Ireland) an its Phoenix House, to whom he guarantees food, cares, studies and access to sport.
Some of these children are buddy champions in taekwondo, a martial art widely practiced in Nepal and very useful for learning the discipline and self-control.
Khem’s children have a “private” instructor, so as not to be discriminated in a “normal” gym and reap successes one after the other in the exams that allow them to switch from one belt color to another or other certifications.
For the current year, CampoBase will face the costs for the next exams, to guarantee children the opportunity to compete and certify their improvements.
Last Saturday, Khem’s children did their exam to pass to new belts and won the Team second best place overall.
