krishna bikram shah
january 15, 2019; tuesday
17:00 nst (nepal standard time)
reload.
no, i am not playing fortnite. neither is my daughter. i tried playing fortnite once, but i was killed the minute after i landed, after which i lost all credibility with daughter that once upon a time i used to be a gamer. we've come a long way since the days of wolfenstein 3d.
but no, this maghe sangranti, on my day off, i am not here to write about fortnite, although it probably did sound like i was trying to reload a fortnite weapon. i am here to reload the hoste hainse blog, which i have kept stagnant for the last 3+ years. what a shame!
well, at least the volunteer blog is being updated. have you checked it out? if not, please do - www.hostehainse.org/blog/volunteer. but this is the main blog, the blog that i started before i started the volunteer blog, and i thought i would keep active with a couple of articles per month. so much for that idea.
not all hope is lost yet, as at least i am back to give it a try. let me try with at least one update a quarter. if the stars and the planets align themselves well enough in this year of the pig, perhaps i will be able to write even once a month. we'll see.
but where do i even start? too much time has passed since my blog entries in 2015 which focused on activities right after the earthquake. to recap three years in one sitting would be madness. maybe i can just touch upon the highlights. so here we go...
the earthquake school rebuilding project in sindhupalchowk completed in 2017. the building was handed over with a trip to sindhupalchowk in which members of german partners, nepalhilfe bietigheim-hersfeld, were present. since then, the shree dharmodaya uchha maha bi has been able to gather even more funds from the government to complement our 6-classroom building with an 8-classroom building in the same compound/campus. this is great news. i hope to go back one of these days to see the entire campus and how it has come together.
the hoste hainse building
@ shree dharmodaya high school
thulo dhading, sindhupalchowk
our flagship project in sarlahi is still in full swing and stronger than ever. touching the lives of over 2,000 underprivileged children, across four non-profit free-for-all community schools, our programs have spun off multiple sub-projects, in the fields of skill development, income generation, social awareness, to name a few. i want to stay as organized as possible, and perhaps i can deep dive into one sub-project per month with an individual blog entry, and just touch upon the surface today. however, the culmination of all our projects is towards the same goal - self-sustainability, and this could be a massive blog entry in itself. i am quite proud to announce that our income generation projects alone (primarily fish farming) are on track to generate 10% of our total sarlahi budget by the end of 2019. this is phenomenal for a 20 year old project that has always solely relied on donations for its operation. it's also a paradigm shift that i have had to fight hard to implement. that again, is another blog entry. :)
fish farming income generation @ padariya, sarlahi
on a different note, our volunteer program is still going strong. lisa came back to visit us in 2017. we got 10 volunteers in 2016, 11 in 2017 and 5 in 2018. lilian is with us right now; she arrived in september and is leaving this month. aayushma is coming back this summer (her 3rd time) and she was able to use hoste hainse in college application to get into the colleges of her choice. that was awesome! we need more volunteers! for more information, please visit www.hostehainse.org/volunteer.
i feel like i am scratching the surface of material that demands more verbose explanations, but i am tackling it with a "something is better than nothing" approach. otherwise, i fear i will go back down the same slippery slope that i did back in 2015. once i fell behind on blog entries, i kept on telling myself i will set some time aside one day and write one blog entry for every month missed. six months turned in one year, and i was 12 entries behind. i am now officially 41 entries behind. hence, i gave up and am simply going the "reload" route.
what else has happened since 2015? oh so much more. i simply cannot cover everything in one entry, and i do not want to make this entry too long either, but i need to quickly tell you about project 3k. www.hostehainse.org/3k. we're only about 9 months into this project, and have been able to raise about npr 9,00,000 already. although p3k is slowing down now, as it is mainly personal connections, and they are slowly getting exhausted, we still need to cover a lot more ground. please check it out - in a nutshell, it is nothing more but a sponsorship project at npr 3,000 (hence, 3k) per child per year. the cost of a family dinner will pay for the education of an underprivileged child for an entire year in one of our non-profit free-for-all community schools in sarlahi. npr 3,000 = usd 30. it's that simple. so, please sponsor a child if you have not already one so. email us at office@hostehainse.org, and we'll get you started.
project 3k
more info @
our next movie premiere fundraiser is coming up. please watch the fundraiser section of our website for more info., but i can tell you what i know so that you can save the date - march 8, 2019, friday, 6pm. jai nepal cinema. the same place where we did the star wars charity movie premiere. we're going to be premiering "captain marvel" for you this time. so, please come! watch this page for more info.: www.hostehainse.org/fundraisers.
am approaching a thousand words, or so my word counter says. hence, should stop now. i hope i have been able to reload the hoste hainse blog, and more importantly, i hope that i will be able to keep it loaded, with at least one writing per quarter, if not per month. there is so much to tell you. we've been super busy, in a good way. if you have any requests on what i should write about next, please email me at office@hostehainse.org.
till next time... and happy maghe sangranti! :)
Comentários