Q Learning Nepal
The Eifion Trust has formed a strong connection with another charity – QLearning Nepal CIO. Qlearning have built and developed a school in Hangdewa, a remote part of Nepal and they offer an outstanding education, currently to more than 300 children. Many of the students are from extremely impoverished and disadvantaged backgrounds.
The Eifion Trust has provided substantial funds to enhance the work that QLearning does. Monies from ET have gone into day to day running of the school, costs of building two new classrooms and support for individual children.
Other schemes that have directly benefitted from ET funds are:
- All girls at the school in Hangdewa get an 80% discount on school fees (between £5 and £9 a month) to cover school books, uniform, glasses, sanitary wear and tuition. This has meant a rise to 50% girls/boys or 145 girls in total. This is virtually unheard of in rural Nepal.
- The provision of 30 nutritious, daily meals @£300 per child per annum for the poorest and most malnourished pupils. This has been hugely successful and the children receiving this support are now flourishing.
- Sponsorship of 20 girls last year and 10 this year to attend school in Taplejung, to complete classes 9 and 10, in order to do their SEE exams.
- Two new classes established. Class 9 this year and Class 10 from next year so that 14 year olds can stay at home and study for their SEE exams (which are like GCSEs with 8 compulsory subjects). Before this, many have been in a rented room on their own – cooking and washing clothes etc) or in a hostel. Previous alumni have found this very difficult.
- Zoom lessons for 6 gifted musicians in singing and piano.
- Martial arts lessons after school for roughly 100 pupils.
- Girls’ toilets and a disabled toilet are also being built.
- A number of children and young people have moved to Kathmandu and are living at CHOE. For some, it is a means to access further education. For others it is to alleviate extremely difficult home situations.
- CHOE has also provided a sanctuary for a child from Hangdewa who needed prolonged medical treatment in Kathmandu.
These contributions offer huge benefit to the larger community in Hangdewa in terms of extra jobs, e.g. for our cooks, and palpable hope in a place where about 75% of families have a dad who is security guard in the Middle East and/or a mum working in care or as a nanny in Hong Kong or Serbia etc. (Parents are often away for a minimum of 3 years but frequently 9 or more). When the parents reach 50, they can no longer get visas and so are unemployed and at home in what has become an estranged family – this can lead to drunkenness, domestic violence and divorce. As a a consequence many of the children find themselves living in extreme poverty, sometimes abandoned by parents and forced to live with relatives, fending for themselves at a very young age. The hope is that with education, the children will have improved life chances be able to get better jobs and break the cycle of poverty.
Trustee Anne Spurr long-time QL sponsor and mentor.
