In mid 2018 NAFA hopes to complete the significant rebuilding commitments it made after the devastating earthquakes in April and May 2015. It will be a big achievement for a small, volunteer run NGO – an achievement of which we can be collectively very proud.

Butterfly child care centre

But what happens then?

Firstly, there we will continue with ongoing projects that NAFA has funded through the earthquake rebuilding period, thanks largely to loyal and generous donors who annually earmark their donations towards particular ongoing projects. Many of these same supporters also donated generously to NAFA’s initial emergency shelter and rice response, and the earthquake rebuilding program for schools and other remote community infrastructure destroyed by the earthquakes.

These ongoing programs include:

  • Child education sponsorships for students up to Grade 12 and for students either undertaking vocational training or Bachelor level study.
  • Remote teacher salary subsidies (3)
  • Subsidy for an annual remote cataract surgery clinic conducted by world renown, Kathmandu-based Tilganga Eye Centre
  • Remote health clinic salary subsidies (3)
  • Support to a primary hearing service and outreach clinics
  • Support to child care services (3) for particularly disadvantaged parents
  • Purchase of remote school library, computer and other resources
  • Purchase of materials for craft programs (2).

 A total of nearly $50,000 was allocated by NAFA to these ongoing programs in 2016, separate from the significant allocations made towards our earthquake rebuilding program.

NAFA will also be monitoring and evaluating a grant provided by the English Family Foundation to establish a plant nursery and reforestation program in the remote area around the village of Tawal in the Dhading district. This role will involve a complex process of helping the local community measure the outcomes or real benefits of the various components of the grant.

Finally, NAFA will continue to consider applications from remote villages for one-off health, education, environmental, water and other community infrastructure. These may include earthquake rebuild projects in villages not previously supported by NAFA and therefore not on our initial earthquake rebuilding program.

In most cases, as was the case prior to the earthquakes in 2015, NAFA will only be able to support projects that can be accessed by NAFA executive officers within one day’s bus trip from Kathmandu, Pokhara or in villages located in the following districts: Dhading (area around the village of Tawal), lower Solu Khumbu and Okhaldhunga.

NAFA is confident that there will be plenty of programs and projects that it will continue to support in the future that will make a real difference to the lives of particularly disadvantaged Nepali communities.

Rod Setterlund OAM

President