Dhading is the nearest of our working areas, only 4 hours drive even allowing for the ubiquitous traffic jams as all traffic crawls in a single lane up the steep hills surrounding he kahtmandu valley and then descends into the valley beyond.
We stopped at a "service area" for breakfast and I was fascinated to see a westernized Nepali traveller with a Louis Vuitton leather handbag in a place like this !
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| our vehicle |
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| buffet selection |
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| breakfast stop |
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| the kitchen |
On arrival at our office we monitored a digital literacy training session for teachers from schools who will soon receive our computer labs, then after lunch set out on the first of our school visits.
Many schools still remain badly damaged by the earthquake of 2015 although building work has started in areas close to black topped roads.
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training teachers in computer skills
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| stunning drive up dirt tracks to first school |
The first school was reached by a long bumpy drive along dirt roads and through villages full of goats, chickens and water buffalo, Often there were piles of stones and other building materials alongside the damaged houses, showing that , at last serious work is now underway.
The school was well managed, with motivated staff who were looking forward to their new computers. Unusually for a community school I saw a functioning science lab where teachers could prepare some experiments to show to their students.
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| Science lab |
They also had a well equipped lab for agriculture and soil studies, very important when the vast majority of the population still rely on subsistence agriculture. Many of the students walked at least an hour each way to school so it was good to see drinking water and a canteen on site. The SLC exams are approaching and th school allows students attending after school extra exam classes to sleep there overnight so they do not have to walk back in the dark
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| agriculture lab |
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| school canteen |
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| Confident students |
Another school mainly had students from the stone cutters village, very poor families relying on unskilled daily wages to survive. Creatively, the school provided day care fro the young children who would otherwise be left to fend for themselves while their mothers were breaking up stones.
One school had a hostel and learning centre for blind children, well resourced with braille books and reading aids.
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| Braille book and reader |
In each case the objective was to monitor our previous interventions designed to improve teaching and learning , and also to see whether the schools would benefit from our computer lab program. We work in so many schools, always with the emphasis on long term , sustainable solutions, that back in the office it is sometimes hard to see the results. These visits enable us to see problems and solutions at first hand and talk with our implementing partner NGO's about future need and challenges, and there are certainly plenty of those!
