Our Lifelines project relates to small one-off donations to be made by New Futures Nepal to other projects and charities working in Nepal. These projects will always be investigated thoroughly by the trustees and those with similar aims to our own will be considered for a grant during the year. In this way we can reach out to hundreds more needy children and adults.
During 2005/2006 two projects in particular were singled out for support from us. Both are run by a UK based charity “Street Children of Nepal”. In March 2006 two trustees visited these projects while in Kathmandu.
The first of these was the Childrens Food Programme. It is a Nepali charity, started in 1999 and runs two soup kitchens, feeding 200-300 street children each day. Thousands of children live on the streets; in shop doorways, cardboard boxes and drainage pipes. The Food Programme rents two kitchens in order to feed some of these children and the food is often donated by local restauranteurs.The kitchens are situated off Durbar Square in Central Kathmandu and the food is very basic - just dhal bhat (lentils and rice), sometimes meat and eggs, and it costs about 17-18 rupees (13 pence) for each meal. Both kitchens are staffed by volunteers. The children attending in the evenings receive a free meal but, if they wish also to eat in the morning, they have to attend education classes for three hours and have a health check.
The second project also cares for street children. We met Dr Rickman who runs several drop-in centres throughout Kathmandu for street children (mostly boys). The children can live at the Centre if they wish or just eat there and receive a health check or education. Dr Rickman is an inspiring man whose project is growing rapidly as word spreads among the street children. At the centre we visited we saw 50-60 children playing football in the yard and met many more inside the building. Dr Rickman’s philosophy is to teach the children to protect themselves by educating them, even if very slightly, to recognize dangers and to give them some hope of a life away from the streets. He operates bank accounts for the children (over 600 currently in use when we were there). The money saved can be used by the children to go back to their villages, buy some sort of training or even to set themselves up in business in a small way.
Both of these projects were found to be well run, courageous and worthwhile and we are delighted to report we were able to make a small donation to each in June of this year.
This means that your contributions are now going to help hundreds of needy children in Nepal; providing them with shelter, food, education and health care.
