Namaste
We hope that you and your families are well and looking forward to taking advantage of the better weather and the gradual easing of lockdown.
Since we last wrote to you, one of our Trustees, Fiona Williams, has, for personal reasons, decided to step back from her role for the time being. It goes without saying that we shall miss her energy and all that she brought to the charity, but she will continue to support us as an Ambassador, and will still take a keen interest in all we do.
But just to keep things in the family, her niece, Anna Wirth will join the Board of Trustees. As a granddaughter of our Founder, John Brown, she has been involved with St Xavier’s since childhood, and has visited the school twice; once as a youngster, sitting with the other children in classes and, more recently, on her second visit, teaching…both of which she enjoyed enormously. Welcome Anna!
In the three months since we last wrote, our JMB family in Nepal continue to do well. Via Zoom we have managed to speak to both the school in Godavari and the Social Services Centre in Kathmandu.
As Nepal has opened up more, the majority of pupils have returned and are happy to see their friends, compare notes on lockdown life, and resume their studies together. It also means that all of the recently completed buildings are now in use.
We were recently introduced to the new manager of the Social Services Centre, Father Thomas. He took up his position on 2nd April. The children from the centre were in fine form, keen to speak to us about their studies, hobbies and the fun they had at the Nepali New Year celebrations and the Festival of Colour! They finished by singing us a traditional Nepali song, that they had been practicing.
One of our Trustees, June Corpuz, has been doing some great work with PAWA (Pan Asian Women’s Association). She introduced them to JMB, and they will now sponsor 8 girls. There is a nice piece on PAWA’s site about St Xavier’s….pawa-london.org
We have two new initiatives that we have started this year…
The first is an introduction to ‘Switch to the Future’, an IT charity, founded by Russ Inman’s former BBC colleague. They provide devices, data and organise connectivity to remote parts of the world. We are looking forward to seeing what they can do in Nepal!
Our other project is around providing career counselling at the school. It’s in its early stages, but looks very promising (with training being done as we speak). We’ll keep you posted as to progress.
Well, that’s almost it for now. We hope that you feel the positivity from Nepal. Just like us here in the UK, after a year of lockdown and home learning, they all want to get on with life.