We are very pleased to announce that we have voted to help with the re-building of our second school, Sharada Secondary School! Sharada is in the village of Trisule, found in the Sankhuwasabha District in Kosi Zone of north-eastern Nepal. The school has a 453 students from Kindergarten up to grade 10 with 16 faculty members. Sharada is found in a very impoverished and rural area. This distance from the trekking tourism of Nepal means the region gets less exposure and has receives little to no support from other non-profits. The earthquakes irreparably damaged the two-storey building, and left cracks in the blocks of the other building. The region is also subject to seasonal extreme winds that has caused the other building to lose its roof numerous times. This has left them with not enough classrooms for the students.
The community got some funding of around 600,000 rupees (around 7200$CAD) and managed to get the design completed. They began construction of on 8-room building hoping they would get more funding but were unable to secure enough help to complete the work. A Member of Parliament (MP) for the area and the local mayor have now agreed to assist ABIN with completing the school. The MP will be contributing around $25,000, the local mayor around $12,500 and the community a further $7,000. This leaves $50,000 to come from ABIN. This project commences immediately and will take 12-14 months to complete. We will be doing a variety of fundraising events over the next few months to raise the money to help fulfill our funding commitment. You can always send us a donation directly using PayPal.
Here are some pictures of the Sharada Secondary School students, faculty and buildings taken by our Nepali project manager, Parshu.
Those with a technical interest can view the plans and designs that have been approved by the Nepal Department of Education.