By Peter Humphris | Chairperson IGWR Inc.
School+Plus2 and Covid-19 do not mix!
Like many places around the world, Nepal is in lockdown during the current pandemic and that means schools and our School+Plus program is also closed.
We have however adapted, and are meeting this challenge by providing home schooling for the 20+ kids in the IGWR houses and providing essential support (food and educational resources) to those kids locked down at home with family situations that have no income due to lack of work in the current situation,
Post-Covid-19 we will have new challenges
It will take a while for a ‘new normal’ to emerge, and many of the families that we support, and that are linked to our School+Plus program, will need support to get back on their feet again.
Our efforts at present are very much focussed on:
* Supporting the 60+ students that we’re already committed to assisting.
* Providing ‘emergency relief’ to families that have no income due to Covid-19.
* Providing educational support to families that do not have access to schooling during the current lockdown.
We do not envisage that our planned School+Plus2 project will be viable for at least another twelve months, and that we will then require a whole new restart for the project.
But, we’re making a real difference now.
Our initial School+Plus project with GlobalGiving continues to evolve, and again the primary focus at the moment is responding to the challenges posed by Covid-19.
You can check out the project page and reports via the following link:
https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/after-school-support-to-30-needy-kids-in-nepal/
In order to pool our resources and meet the current challenges we will close this project once this final report has been sent out and transfer any remaining funds to the initial School+Plus project.
We have also initiated some further fundraising requests in order to meet immediate needs for the students in Nepal, and are looking at sourcing both laptop computers and mobile phones so that students can, wherever possible, participate in online learning programs.
And what about the immediate future?
We’re running a campaign to encourage participation in the GlobalGiving July Bonus Day, and this might be our only opportunity for significant fundraising during the Current Covid-19 climate.
And, we are discussing post-Covid-19 opportunities, we all know that the world is changing and perhaps there is a lesson in empathy and compassion that we are learning during the pandemic.
Thank you for already making a difference?
The School+Plus program during the Covid-19 lockdown has been a wonderful resource for supporting children who are no longer able to attend school, and that has also enabled us to assist with emergency relief as we had the team and contacts in place ready to respond.
You may have heard the proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child”; and hopefully you can now see yourself as very much a part of the village that is raising these children and giving them opportunities they would otherwise not have.
Post Covid-19 we might see a more generous approach to “others”.
We still need to be discerning, and discover those places and people that really want to make a difference; many charities have high administration costs, and certainly in Nepal many are quite corrupt in their use of donor funds.
IGWR-Nepal is supported by IGWR Inc. a registered Australian Charity that is run by volunteers and that has no Administration costs, except for bank charges and audit fees.
99.52% of all monies donated goes directly to the operations of IGWR-Nepal
All site visits to Nepal are self-funded by the volunteers visiting, and the team in Nepal is amazing in what they can achieve with each dollar donated. Our GlobalGiving projects do incur a 10% processing fee, however this is balanced by the matched giving days and extras that come from the GG programs.
Thanks for being part of a wonderful village
and we hope you will take time to look at our
School+Plus project page on the GG website
https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/after-school-support-to-30-needy-kids-in-nepal/
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
