NEPAL: RECONSTRUCTION BY HAND

The WACKER Relief Fund has been supporting the nonprofit student company since 2015. Founded in 2005, Namasté Nepal collaborates with a Nepalese aid organization in the building and running of schools and kindergartens in the Sindhupalchok province. The earthquake left a trail of devastation in Freiberg’s sister village of Gati, situated around 100 km northwest of the Nepalese capital Kathmandu.

The year 2017 was hallmarked by intense construction work in the villages of Gati, Dandakateri, Singarche and Mandra. “The overall situation for rebuilding the destroyed schools is complicated,” reports project coordinator Steffen Judersleben, who accompanied the students on their long journey. “Transportation routes that were difficult to begin with were destroyed by the heavy monsoon. It’s been difficult to access materials, since a lot of new buildings are going up in the district. And the market in Nepal is reacting to the bottleneck with higher prices.”

Because remote mountain villages lack technology and heavy equipment, the schools are being rebuilt entirely by hand. And village residents are really throwing themselves into the job: when the ceiling for the first floor of the new school was poured in Gati, over one hundred women and men turned out to help.

The Freiberg students did their part to help with the construction work too. Judersleben recalls the moving experience: “Being able to be part of such fantastic teamwork was one of the most meaningful moments of our project work in Gati.” When the new school year begins in April 2018, classes are to be held in the newly built schools in Gati and Dandakateri.

You can read more about the Nepal project at www.nepalfreiberg.de. The online shop that the non-profit student company maintains is always worth a visit: www.nepalfreiberg.de/cms/index.php/shop. Legendary Nepalese coffee, for instance, and their beautifully illustrated Nepal calendar make great Christmas gifts – and help a good cause.