Aiselu Bhume School Library
The school is located in Khule village which is nestled in the picturesque Nuwakot district in the foothills of the Ganesh Himal mountains. It was hit extremely hard by the earthquakes and 16 of the 20 classrooms in the local school were flattened.
Not long after the successful opening day of the first Active Hearts Foundation library, Sadtobate Secondary School Library, Dan and Arjun started to look into the next project.
Every village in Nepal has educational issues and potential projects. We are always conscious of addressing this is the RIGHT way. One of the most important parts of project research is through our local connections.
Central to this is our Active Hearts Foundation co-founder Mr Arjun Adhikari
Arjun is highly educated through the Nepali schooling system and internationally through six years spent working in Malaysia. He is a lead Himalaya guide with Active Adventures and a village leader in the Nuwakot district. Through Arjun’s intimate knowledge of Nepali culture, the education system and social issues we research our projects and conduct our mission with the careful cultural and logistical considerations.
This is how we came to find Aiselu Bhume Secondary School.
The school is located in Khule village in the Kispang valley this is a very poor area with people predominantly of Tamang decent. It was hit extremely hard by the earthquakes and 16 of the 20 classrooms in the local school were flattened.
Arjun and Dan visited the school in Nov 2015 to meet the principal and teachers and see the damage. It was very confronting to see the collapsed buildings and the makeshift offices and classrooms first hand. Luckily for this area UNICEF had paid for locally made bamboo structures to be built as temporary classrooms.
The school role is about 600 students and some walk for up to 1.5hrs to attend class. A small very basic library was in existence but consisted of a few very outdated books not relevant to the school curriculum. The small number of computers were rendered useless by the quakes. Dan and Arjun quickly came to the conclusion that Aiselu Bhume Higher Secondary School could desperately use our assistance.
Plans were made to use one of the remaining concrete classrooms as the new library room. The principal provided a list of approximately 1000 curriculum related books that the teachers needed. Arjun and Dan would source the books in Kathmandu along with 4 new computers to further the students’ computer studies. Local craftsmen would build the bookshelves, lay the carpet, hang the curtains and paint the room. Tables would be built and we would provide sitting mats for the children plus the librarian’s desk and chair.
To ensure efficient operation of the library a librarian would be trained and the salary would be provided by the Active Hearts Foundation.
The total cost of this library project is $10000 NZD
On hearing the news of a new Hearts Library project Mr Mark ‘Funky’ Wilson from New Zealand, made contact with Dan. Mark had recently joined the Active Hearts Solu Khumbu Charity Trek. Marks parents Jeremy and Julie are the owners of Directions Advertising in Christchurch, New Zealand. They had the awesome idea of sponsoring this Library Project project on behalf of their clients.
Julie and Jeremy very generously chose to donate the $3000USD needed to renovate the interior of the new library!
The total cost of the library including 2000 books came to about $7000USD.
We are very grateful to Jeremy, Julie and Mr Funky for their support
Six months later the library refit was complete, the books were stacked and the computers were in place. A group of the Active Hearts team wound their way back into the mountains to Khule village. The monsoon was late arriving in 2016 meaning much of the corn crop was very late to be planted. The day before the grand opening on May 29 2016 the rains came. Unfortunately, this meant the large ceremony planned had to be downsized to fit inside an earthquake damaged building but we were more grateful that the much needed rains had finally arrived. Never the less it was a wonderful day!
We were very spoilt by the school and the village. A delicious Dal Bhat feast was had then the afternoon was filled with song, dance and speeches. The new library looked amazing and the new computers were sitting proud.
Watch the opening day of this project filmed and produced by Mr Babin Dulal, a film student at the Kathmandu film school. Khule Library Opening Video
Thank you once more to all the kind donors, the people of Khule village, the staff and student of Aiselu Bhume Secondary School and Directions Advertising, New Zealand. You are all LEGENDS!
