We have bought a school-bus! With thanks to our Dutch friends!
November 15th, 2010 by Dennis Crommentuijn-Marsh
It has been a while since I have updated this website with news, BUT, here we have in one go quite a few stories that are just such fantastic news!
Walking 1.5 hours – just to get to school
It’s June 2010 and Yeshi calls Rebecca to update her on how it is going at the school. He tells that he has a problem with some of the youngest of the children which live in the nearby refugee camp. Yeshi explains that some of them have to walk 1.5 hours each way to come to school [The school provides care and education to children from 4-14] He also explains that there is a bathing and washing facility in Pokhara that he can use to ensure the children are clean and healthy.
He says he has found a school-bus that would be perfect for a large number of activities he has to undertake as part of keeping the school running, like buying food, buying other supplies, taking ill children to the local hospital, going out for the day on an outing.
The Thupten Project in The Netherlands
There is a lovely lady called Angela in The Netherlands who has been a number of times to Nepal, and is working very hard to support the school anyway she can. She runs her own little charity, called The Thupten Project, named in honour of a Nepalese friend.
Over the years, The Thupten Project has been sponsoring a number of the children at the school, and they have been raising money for projects to improve the school. This year, with the kind support from her loyal sponsors and the local Kringloopwinkel (second hand shop), she has been able to make a large donation to the Nagajuna School to help fund the bus.
Where do we find the money?
Yeshi explains that the money he will receive from the Thupten Project is not quite enough to buy the bus. Are we able to help out? We have a look at our finances, and our expenditure and realise that with a little bit of help from our other Dutch supporters, we could be able to buy the bus. We have a board meeting and make a decision. Given the need that Yeshi has, we decide we will fund the remaining part to enable him to buy the bus.
The bus is bought!
The news comes via an email. Yeshi has bought the bus! He has had a local mechanic inspecting the vehicle and it appears to be in excellent working condition. and it is not very old, only 8 years. This means that the bus, with the right kind of TLC will have a long working life still ahead of it!
The next challenge – which colour scheme and which writing?
The next challenge appears: The bus needs a respray and a mention should be made of the contributors. What should be written on the side of the bus? You see, it is customary to write the names of kind sponsors on the side of busses, and you will see quite a few when you travel through Nepal.
We decide to dedicate the bus to our 2 Dutch charities that have been kind enough to support the school, the PMC (Project Matige Charity) and Thupten project.
How many kids can you fit in a bus? look at the photos and count!
Below are the photos that have been taken of the bus, and of course the school children! I hope you like them! Click on each one. This will open in a new window, and then you can click again to zoom in. oh….and yes….ALL those children DO fit in the bus! (don’t ask…)
How did the children react?
For the majority of the children they have never owned anything new. And this bus is ‘Something New’ for them!
Yeshi said that every morning, when they have woken up, they go outside and inspect that the bus is still there. They just can’t believe we have been lucky enough to buy this bus for them, with a lot of help from our friends! They just love it!
PMC in The Netherlands Supports Nagajuna Trust for the second year running!
November 15th, 2010 by Dennis Crommentuijn-Marsh
This is the second year that a charity in a little village in the Netherlands has donated money to the charity to support the well-being of the children! PMC (Project Matige Charity = Project Based Charity) is solely run by volunteers, and all their income is spread across various charities. We had to give a presentation early in the year to their members and explain what we wanted to do with their donation. The PMC committee was kind enough to agree that our project was worthy of their support; thus a fantastic phonecall later, the news was transmitted!
We have bought a gas-powered fridge!
We have bought a gas-powered Fridge and been able to make general improvements to the kitchen area! A Key problem to date has been that the school did not have a fridge, something we would take for granted, but just imagine feeding 120 children without a fridge!…
This meant that there was no storage facility for fresh produce, necessitating that fresh produce had to be bought daily. The other problem that the school faced was that the children were often sick, due to bad tummies. Now we have a gas-powered fridge, we can store and keep perishable items at a safe temperature. As the local electricity supply is very unreliable, a gas-powered fridge was the best solution. This means it is independent of the electricity supply.
The cook has been able to create wonderful fresh dishes, see the Tibetan Momo’s! (I’ll see if I can get the recipe!)
Later this year we are planning improvements to the sanitation.
More news to follow!
And Thank You to All the Volunteers of the PMC!
Successful Barndancing event held
November 30th, 2009 by Dennis Crommentuijn-Marsh
Last Saturday, 28th November, a Barn Dance was held in Evington village hall, Leicestershire.
More than 25 families and friends, totalling 100 people turned up to dance the do-si-do, strip the willow, the g-lord gordon and other traditional dance moves. Children as young as 4, and big children as young as 70 all joined in!
The event was organised by Philippa and Vendela (over a few cups of tea!), and their families did a great job of getting everything prepared and set up.
The evening started round 17:00, the caller and the live band performed many songs, and by 20:45 everybody was tired! tidying up did not take too long afterwards, so plenty of time for a relaxing beverage afterwards.
A ploughmans’ supper was provided to all, and there was a choice of ham, cheese, humus and vegan bread. For desert were (not enough…) scrummy brownies.
Dennis gave a brief speech to introduce the cause, thank all participants and volunteers, and with the help of Vendela drew the raffle tickets. All the prizes were kindly donated by well-wishers.
The bar did good business selling fruit shoots, hula hoops and J2O, and a stall with Nepalese jewellery and information about the Nagajuna Trust had a proud place in the main hall.
All in all a great event, which was enjoyed by young and old. Thank you to all whom attended, I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!
And the best thing of all: we made £172 for the Nagajuna Trust!
If you attended the dance, and are interesting in supporting our cause, or want a link to all the photos of the evening, get in touch!
Newsletter September 2009
October 26th, 2009 by Dennis Crommentuijn-Marsh
We have the September newsletter from the school! In this edition:
- Good news: we are back in the old building….but at a cost.
- Students and a teacher from Australia visit the school.
- Fund raising update.
- Jokes, pictures and personal messages from the children.
- And much, much more!
Story published in the Leicester Mercury
July 22nd, 2009 by Dennis Crommentuijn-Marsh
7 July 2009 – Today a story of the 3 Peaks Challenge was published in the Leicester Mercury.
Thanks to Kelly for writing the story, and managing, after considerable negotiations with the Editor, to get it published!
(Note from me: This was an interesting insight in how a story is told in the first place, how it is then written up, and finally what is published, and what you need to do to get something published. You may notice that there are only a few misspellings in some of the surnames, the focus was only on the Midlands team, as this was a midlands newspaper, they missed out one of the drivers and all the additional words we had written about all the sponsors that helped us to make this challenge a success. Besides this, not a bad article really!)
We did the 3-Peaks Challenge within 24 hours!
July 22nd, 2009 by Dennis Crommentuijn-Marsh
Snowdon – Wales: On Saturday 27th July, around 5:30pm 12 extatic and tired walkers, together with their drivers, celebrated the completion of their challenge.
Both the London and the Midlands team managed to complete the 3 Peaks Challenge within the 24 hours’ target they had set themselves.
Jane and her brother were acting as the welcoming committee at Penn-y-Pass complete with a lovely cake, adorned with 3 upside down icecones, symbolising the 3 Peaks.
There were some bad blisters, leg and muscle injuries; but all 12 went up, and all 12 came down!
Sofar for this challenge, over £5,000 has been raised by the team members for the trust, which is a fantastic achievement in its own right.
A special thanks to the drivers, who did an incredible amount of miles (the Midlands team drove 1200miles), making lots of cups of tea, and had the dinner ready for the hungry walkers at Ben Nevis.
Twitter was updated on an hourly basis (signal permitting) to keep all the mums, dads, friends and family updated on the progress.
Plenty of photos were taken which tell their own story of the event.
For a personal account from each team, watch this space!
The Final countdown: T-3 days
June 23rd, 2009 by Dennis Crommentuijn-Marsh
The final preparation
three more days until we will do the three peaks challenge with 12 walkers and 4 drivers .
Tonight is the last preparation run. The next few days will be spent finalising all the details:
- printing the routes
- packing spare clothes
- preparing food for the trip
- updating this blog, the twitter and facebook account
I just need to add my mobile number to the twitter account so it can be updated “live” as we go along. Thijs will fly in from holland Thursday evening, and needs picking up. Nearly there!……..
Donations
Also sent today another reminder to people that have not yet made a donation. Fingers crossed we wil get some more money from people. it is not too late to donate, so please do so if you havent done it yet.
Cool T-shirts
Great news is that Laura managed to get T-shirts printed for al the participants! complete with logos and names. so we all will look the bees-knees! I will post a picture shortly! just need to find a willing volunteer to pose in one.
Meeting Rebecca’s uncle
Finally, today I met Rebecca’s uncle, who was in Pokhara last christmas visiting the school. The experience was still beaming off his face and it was hartwarming to see and feel how much of a positive lasting impact the trip had made on him.
Trustees are preparing for Three Peaks Challenge in June
May 26th, 2009 by Dennis Crommentuijn-Marsh
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As you know we have a huge challenge on our hands building a school. We have decided to set ourselves our own challenge: doing the Three Peaks of Scotland, England and Wales within 24 hours. This will take place during the last weekend in June.
We have found 12(!) volunteers who will attempt the challenge, supported by a small crew of drivers who will hopefully also cook a good breakfast/lunch/dinner!
The London team is headed up by Rebecca, and the Midlands team by Dennis.
Of course we are asking you to support us in this challenge by donating to The Nagajuna Trust.
Two websites have been set up for this purpose and you can donate from anywhere in the world!:
London team: http://www.justgiving.com/rebecca3peaks
Midlands team: http://www.justgiving.com/DennisCM_3Peaks
If you are a UK taxpayer, by donating online, we get straightaway 23p extra for every pound you donate!
If you want a paper-based donation form, this is available as well, just send us an email.
You can keep updated by reading or signing up to the Nagajuna Trust Twitter account or reading this blog!
Updates:
Tuesday 26 May 2009: At the moment we are all in training: walking, running, swimming and cycling. Hardening our feet with surgical spirit and compiling our kit. Sponsor forms have been made and ready to emailed out. The first donations have been pledged. Watch your inbox!
Sunday 31 May 2009: today 4 members of the Midlands team did a trial walk on Snowdon. Thijs drove over all the way from Holland for the occasion. We all made it up and down in 4 hours. We took a few photos, which you can see here:
Postscript: it has now been a few days since we climbed Snowdon, and we all suffer from a few aches. I am glad I had my walking sticks with me, they seem to work. Time for a few more strengthening exercises!