2013 is shaping up to be the beginning of some new roads for HANDS in Nepal. We are combining forces, resources and love for learning with Mark Pinoli of Logged On Foundation, a non-profit group dedicated to bringing computers and the internet to remote Nepali villages. In Astam, the village where Mark has been working, outside of Pokhara, Nepal, backdropped by towering Annapurna mountains, there sits a neglected and abandoned building. We are taking that building and turning it into a library, hiring local laborers to rain-and-dust proof the structure, build shelves, reading areas and then bring enough books in Nepali and English, plus solar lights, to stock it for the village children and adults.
Last year we built from the ground up a library in the village of Phulkharta, and found the response from the villagers to be full of excitement, joy and hope that reading could now be a possibility year-round, not just during school hours. I was particularly touched by the women holding onto the bars of the window, looking from the outside in, as I unpacked boxes of books inside the crowded space. My translator told me they felt the library was not for them, because they had never learned to read. I quickly told him to tell the women they were certainly welcome in the library, and passed out picture books I had found of people from around the world, women caring for children and cookbooks full of photos picked out particularly for the new reader. "In America, our libraries are for everyone," I told them, "and this building is for you as well as the children." I could see our library building would benefit from also holding workshops on how to use a library, but was equally interested in having a community meeting to ask the villagers how they wanted to use their library.
Women outside the new library
The building of libraries in remote, isolated areas in poor countries is not a new concept, yet as you trek around Nepal, you would be astonished at how isolated, subsistence existing (as in no supplies or food other than what can be made in the village) and book-poor the villages remain. Long monsoon months mean having little to do but watch the rain. There is no electricity and little infrastructure to provide anything other than food gathering. Literacy and reading can open so many doors for the children and their families in these extreme areas. And so we begin 2013 with another library in another area, and look forward to posting here the joy reading brings to the children of Astam.
But the library will not be the only focus of our year. With generous donations and funds raised through our annual benefit, we are also making a library in a special school on the outskirts of Kathmandu. Please click and read on the post: "Do All Children Deserve To Read?" to find out more about what we are trying to do to make our corner of the world a little better for those children who live there.
www.handsinnepal.org
