Pramila sister has just had a baby boy – and we are all so happy for her!

Pramila works extremely hard for Aishworya, taking care of the children, keeping them healthy and happy and in school – and taking them to the hospital when they are sick.

All the children and volunteers are grateful to Pramila for the work she does – so we wish her the best with her new baby!

Lots more Photos!

Thanks to a wonderful volunteer from Singapore, Natalie Tan, we now have many more photos of the children – so please check out our new photo page and feel free to leave a comment or to send us more!

and a very Happy New Year for 2012 to all our friends living all over the world!

These three months have brought lots of excitement because in October we celebrated our biggest Nepali festivals, Dassai and Diwali. The children had their Annual School Day, then came the winter and the winter brought Christmas. Once again, merry Christmas and a very happy new year 2012 to all our wonderful friends! This is our 7th Christmas celebration and each year Aishworya has been celebrating Christmas more hugely and we have learned more about Christmas. A few years ago our children could not even pronounce the name of Santa Claus. But now they wait for Christmas as it has become one of their

The children opening their Christmas gifts

favorite days of the year. Our children have also learned that there are no boundaries between religion and celebrations, the main thing that matters is love and a pure heart -that makes the children happy.
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We again thank all our friends, sponsors and donors for their regular support and the wonderful Christmas gifts sent to us.
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School Annual Day

The children have school annual day once a year, when the kids are given awards for their best deeds, and it is also a celebration of singing, dancing, funny plays and more activities. We again had many children who were given awards for their excellent performance in studies, sports and dancing. This year we were so proud of our small banana group who featured in a group dance!

Banana-Group getting ready to dance

So our kids are improving in extra activities besides their studies too!

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Volunteers

Jessica Pandit, an American married to a Nepali man and also a sister in- law of our ama Nirmala, volunteered at Aishworya for almost three months.

Jessica and Amaa with the gifts for the children

She was a wonderful volunteer who the children will always remember and miss. Her grandmother and a friend sent many gifts for our children, like socks, slippers, underwear and soaps from America. We heartily thank them for the gifts which were so useful for the children in their daily needs.

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In these three months we have had other volunteers, like Brady from America (pictured below), and we also had surprise re-visits from our previous volunteers Kaisla and Petri who came from Finland having spent a whole year with us in 2009-2010. Thanks to all our volunteers for giving us wonderful memories.

Aama with our lovely volunteers!

If you need more information, want to share ideas and views, would like to volunteer, or have already volunteered and  would like to send us photos or a paragraph about you and/or your experiences in Aishworya to put up on the website, we would love that!
Please email ach.nepal@gmail.com

THANK YOU!

July, August and September have always been peak times for volunteers as it is vacation time for many foreign students.

Aishworya has had many volunteers not only from different European countries, but also many volunteers from Asian countries like Taiwan, China, Singapore and Hong Kong. It’s always good to have volunteers but this time it was more exciting because we had volunteers from different countries at the same time. The volunteers were here for a very short time, like a week or two, but the children had a lot of fun with them and also got to learn many things, including languages. And there was more excitement when we also had visits from some ex-volunteers who were so lovely to revisit us. We had two volunteers, Kristin (USA) & Celine (Switzerland),

We have also had some absolutely wonderful volunteers who are staying at Aishworya for a long time; they are Indira from Germany and Julie from France. They will be with us for a few months.

There were more two volunteers from Denmark, Inger and Anne who were over 60 years of age. This was a very good experience to have volunteers of an elder age. We were very grateful to have both of them for a month and we all shared a wonderful time together.

Inger celebrating her 64th birthday with us!

Need for funding and  support

We have been very fortunate to have had a small group of sponsors who have been regularly supporting us for the last few years. Sadly however, one of our biggest sponsors has run out of money and will no longer be able to help us. We are now trying hard to find more regular donors and any help we could get with that would be hugely appreciated.

Happy Dassai & Diwali to all our kind and wonderful friends!!

If you need more information, want to share ideas and views or would like to make any kind of contribution please feel free to contact us. THANK YOU!

Contact email: ach.nepal@gmail.com

The winter is coming and Kathmandu is about to get very cold! In spite of the generous donations of all our friends and family, the price of rice keeps going up and we are finding it difficult to afford all the food the children need. We are so grateful for all the support you can and do give us, and please keep telling everyone you know about Aishworya, we are always happy to get messages and emails from interested people.

We have had some good news though:

Kathrine Nissen, one of our Danish volunteers, has very kindly set up a bank account for us in Denmark, to make it easier for people to donate from Denmark. This is very useful as we have had lots of Danish volunteers recently!
Have a look at our How to Help page for the details.

Kristin Loya is an American citizen who is currently working in Hong Kong as a teacher. She has visited Aishworya twice and she recently ran a fundraiser at her school in Hong Kong and another one with her family and friends in the USA. With the money she raised we bought 15 brand new school uniforms and 16 sets of new bed sheets including a 16 pair of pillow covers. We are very grateful to her and all the friends, family and schoolchildren who supported her – it’s so nice to think of this connection between school children in Hong Kong and school children in Kathmandu!

We have some photos of Kristen’s last visit:

The purpose of the newsletter is not only to provide you with our specialized information but also to get close with all the kind people around the world. This newsletter has been a great way to communicate with all our wonderful friends who have been supporting Aishworya in so many ways.

We have been informing you about our developments, children’s stories, their activities, vacations, festivals, all that has been happening here and much more. We are so glad and touched by your kindness and support. During the three years we have been writing this newsletter we have told all the friends we have made all the news from Aishworya and all about its noble work. We the Aishworya family would like to thank everyone for their involvement in this social service. Every penny you’ve given, your ideas, wonderful gifts and so much love has brought lots of happiness to these children’s lives. We hope and truly believe that your love and affection for us will grow more in the future.

Update:

New House!

We recently moved into a new house, two houses down from the old one, , on the same road. It’s a little bigger than the last one, but with similar rooms and a big hall where we dance and pray.
Sometimes on special occasions like sundays or holidays, Aama’s friend who is a yoga teacher comes to teach yoga in the morning., which we all enjoy.

The Older Kids

Many of the children are very busy these days.

We mentioned before that some of the bigger boys – Durga, Marich and Buddhi – go to a carpentering workshop in the afternoons (school in the morning of course!) and another – Yamraj – learns about electronics with Buaa (the Home’s father). He is very good at his work, and fixes rice cookers and irons and everything with wires that breaks in the home!

However Yamraj and another older boy, Yogesh, also go to a school to teach and play with young children, and they go to class in the evenings as well!

As well as taking care of the children at Aishworya, Pramila teaches English to disabled children in a centre nearby. The people at the centre there practice physiotherapy for the children, and now some of our older girls, Dhanu and Sujita, visit the centre to learn how to do it. Hopefully they may be able to get a qualification and teach physiotherapy themselves in the future. In the meanwhile though, they enjoy it very much.

Jack, whose Nepali name is Dorje, just turned sixteen and so he got his official citizenship card – we are all very proud of him!

Tek Bahadur Ghale (Jack) getting his citizenship card

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Schools re-open

Meanwhile the children have started their new year of school, which began at the end of April.

Bananas (that's what we call the little kids!) help to tie each others' shoelaces

The kids are all heading to upper class, which everyone is very proud and excited about.

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Events – Birthday Party

Birthday Cake!

Just as we have been celebrating all the functions and festivals with so much joy, recently it was time to celebrate the children’s favorite event – their “birthday”, which comes very close to Mother’s Day, a festival we also celebrate.

The birthday was as always a wonderful day with lots of delicious food, dancing, singing playing games with the volunteers, and it ended with a birthday cake, which the children loved!

Cutting the Birthday Cake

New Volunteer

In these three months we have had some new volunteers: Katharine and Mette from Denmark for a month; Joanna from England; Ursina from Switzerland and Rosanna from Sweden for three weeks. We had a very good time and the volunteers were very dedicated to the children. All of them looked after the children very well and shared new ideas with us and helped the children in their schoolwork.

Volunteers looking beautiful in Saris

We thank all of them for coming to Nepal and giving their valuable time to help us.

And we want to especially thank Katharine Nissen as she has helped us by opening an Aishworya Bank Account in Denmark. Thank you Katharine!!! The bank details and information are given below

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IBAN: DK8520000751867298
SWIFT: NDEADKKK
Bank code: 5630
Account no.: 0751867298

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Back to pen and paper

We have very good news regarding our sweet boy Dilip Tamang, who was so ill, but has recovered well and is getting much better now. He has just come back home from a long stay at the hospital. He is still taking medicines and has to rest a lot but we are looking after him. Dilip is also back to his pen and paper as he loves to draw and has recently participated in a drawing exhibition held by one of the British NGOs. His drawing was so much appreciated, and in fact was put on display by the organisation.

Dilip is happy to be up and drawing again

Dilip’s treatment was very expensive, so this has only been made possible by our very kind friends who made a contribution for his treatments.

We would like to thank:

Mark Wilson and Maluz Moreno, Helen Neale and friends from New Zealand, Annuka and Minna from Finland, Louise Simmonds from England. Bondi Runners group from Australia,

Stefanie Nygren from Sweden and all our regular donors.

Thank you so much for being there for us whenever we are in need.

If you need more information, want to share ideas and views or would like to make any kind of contribution please feel free to contact us. THANK YOU!

Our email  contact is:  ach.nepal@gmail.com

And a very Happy Nepali New year 2068 B.S.

We hope the coming year makes our friendships stronger and brings lots of happiness to everyone’s lives.

Holi !!

Holi is one of the festivals especially loved by the kids. Holi – the festival of color – took place on the 19th of March this year and I am very pleased to announce

Volunteers can't help but get covered in paint!

that the volunteers took part in throwing paint and water all over the population of Kathmandu, as well as each other. A lot good fun and not to be missed!

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School Final Exam

The children had their final exam and with this the children again finished their year of school. Now they will be heading towards the new year of school, which will begin at the end of April.

Children coming out of their final exam

New Volunteers

As the previous volunteers finished their period of stay at Aishworya the long line of new volunteers is on its way. There are four new volunteers at Aishworya. All the volunteers are from Denmark; they are Kristina (20), Signe (19) Iben (20) and Nanna(21). The volunteers will be at Aishworya for a month.

Musical gift

Some of the children with the new instruments

We are very thankful to Mr. Geert Jan Hoek from Netherlands for gifting us musical instruments, harmonica, flute, dholak & tabala (an Indian classical instrument). The children are very exited and happy to learn and play these new musical instruments.

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Hospital visit

Our very sweet boy Dilip Tamang has been hospitalized for almost a month. He has an infection of phenomena and meningitis and there is also water in his lungs. He is very ill and always has a very high fever. He is getting the best possible treatment and the doctors have been very cooperative and kind. As his condition has not improved they have given him more attention. There have been hundreds of tests done of his blood, urine, and stool. He has also gone through many X-rays and ultrasounds. He is getting medicines through injections only. The boy is very strong to get injected in most parts of his body.

Dilip in bed at the hospital

We request all our friends to please pray for Dilip’s quick recovery and we hope he gets better as soon as possible.

If any of our friends would like to make a donation for Dilip’s treatment it would be very kind of you as his treatment is getting very expensive. Any amount you can give will count.

Dilip is very sick

Christmas at Aishworya is a hectic time for members and volunteers as well as the children. This year Finnish bread was served by our volunteers, as part of a full western breakfast.  This was followed by a very informative lesson about the legendary “Santa Claus”.

Santa comes to see the kids!

Afterwards the children were all given presents left by the great man with a belly like a bowl full of jelly! This was followed by a full day of chocolate-eating and movie-watching. After a day of eating far too much, singing and dancing, the children played with their toys and gifts. Lots of thanks to everybody involved in making the children part of this auspicious day.

Presents for the kids

The children were very appreciative to all   those who made Christmas at Aishworya such a fantastic success.

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New Volunteers

Aama, our lovely volunteers, and some well-placed santa hats

Kristin from America, who is currently a teacher in Hong Kong, was at Aishworya for two weeks over Christmas. In January we had three new volunteers:
Jon (18) from London for five months and Stefanie (19) and Beatrice (18) from Sweden for eight weeks. We thank all our volunteers for coming here from so far away and being a part of the Aishworya family. Aishworya appreciates all our volunteers for their dedication to this children’s home.

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Older Children

We have always informed our readers about our success in re-uniting many of our children with their families. This helps not only the kids but also their parents to start a new beginning. By finding jobs to step forward towards a better life, parents themselves can look after the kids. But besides this we have also been looking for better opportunities for the children, and we have again been successful settling a few of our kids, Moti, Sanip and Sidikshya:

Moti has been honored by receiving a sponsorship to continue his education in a very good English boarding school.

Sanip and Sidiksha are brother and sister. They have been so lucky to get a wonderful Tibetan family (friends of Nirmala). They have now officially taken the kids, along with their mother, to live with them from now onwards. The Tibetan family has a business and lives in Bangalore (India), and the children are already there and have started in a new school. Their mother has also been given a job, so the kids and their mom can together live with their new Tibetan family.

Sidiksha (left) has fun on a swing

Sanip blowing bubbles!!!

We wish them a wonderful life ahead.

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More Helping Hands

We are getting more and more helping hands from many people and Aishworya thanks everyone for being so kind to us. We want to name all our friends who have made a donation for Christmas and New-year 2010. The donations will be used for the children’s education in 2011, school shoes, and school necessities and for Nima’s treatment – she is suffering from tuberculosis and a lung infection.

Donors:
Malerei Laiminger, Mag. Andrea Crossley, from Austria, Martti Levola, Ulla Levola, Marita Juntunen.,Markus Koskelainen , Roosa Räty. Kaisla, Marianne, Outi and Karita Petri and family from Finland. Danielle and Andrea from Usa.

We also want to thank our very close friends the Bondi Runners from Australia who visited Aishworya in December with their families. The Bondi runners have always been very concern and supportive and have always visited us when ever they are in Nepal.

And we heartily thank all our friends for the beautiful gifts send to the kids for Christmas and thanks to all our regular donors who has been so kind to support us continuously.

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New Children

Just as we have settled some kids with families, there have been other children joining us. We have some very innocent and wonderful new kids in our family. Two boys – Kumar (10), and Suman (8), and two girls – Manju (10) and Karuna (7), have joined us. The children have not been able to carry on their education yet, but they seem very comfortable and happy at Aishworya. The volunteers have been very supportive and taken good care of the new kids.

New kids with the volunteers

Festivals

We again celebrated Dashain and Tihar (Diwali). We have always made our children learn about Nepali culture and its tradition so we make sure to celebrate festivals like Dashain and Tihar  which teach the children more about our cultures.

Determined by the Nepali calendar, these main Hindi festivals Dashain and Tihar fall on the Western months of October and November – and it is a good time to be in Kathmandu! These festivals are celebrated in two parts and last for a month. Since they are the most important auspicious occasions, the festivals are declared public holidays, and people who have left their homes for work and education, now travel back to their respective cities and villages to be with their loved ones. Families put their differences aside during this time of the year and celebrate it with good food and laughter.

At this point we want to tell about our children, for whom these celebrations hold special meaning. One of the important holidays is Dashain. This is a holiday of family, food and visiting relatives. The most important day is Tika Day. The elders bless the younger members of the family. Aishworya has been raising the children in a family environment and so Tika Day takes a special meaning, giving them a sense of belonging because here they have an elder to bless them and give them security and strength for the upcoming life. Blessings of tika are given along with fruit and a small token of money which the children look forward to.

After Dashain comes Tihar, and during Tihar there is another tika day, called Bhai Tika, celebrated by sisters giving tika to their brothers. This is celebrated with malas and fruits and offerings of lots of good food to bond the many sisters with their brothers. Our volunteers were very pleased to be a part of this festival and also appreciated that the children get opportunities to celebrate the function and festival as other childrendo.

Offering of Sale on Lapatee (leaf plates)

This is called SALE. Sale is a round shaped deep-fried bread made of rice flour added with sugar, butter, hubs, milk and many more ingredients. Sail is one of the compulsory food that is made in  Tihar.

School Function

As we have mentioned in our previous newsletters, the children have been doing extremely well at their school, not only in their studies but also in the extra curricular activities. Our Director Nirmala (Aama) always believedin them and tried her best to encourage the children in order to bring out their inner talents. Just before the Dashain holiday the children had a Yearly School Function, where the children had to participate in various activities like Sports, Drawing, Dance and many more.

Some of our children were awarded by the school Chairman and school Principle.

The children pose proudly with their awards

It was very good and happy moment to see the kids getting awards. We want to thank all our friends, sponsors and well-wishers that this would not have been possible without your support and love towards these children. We believe that all our friends are equally proud as we are.

We have again had some wonderful new volunteers, Hallbera (18) from Iceland, who came for six weeks,  Veronica from Slovakia for a month, Carla (23) from London  for seven weeks, Elena (19) from Switzerland for two weeks, Evelyne (20) from Switzerland for one month and Claire (18) from France for six weeks. We heartily thank all our volunteers for giving their valuable time to Aishworya and the children. Hallbera, Claire, Elena and Carla also very kindly gave us a DVD player, for which we are very grateful! The volunteers have an important role to the development of Aishworya.

Kids and Volunteers together

Happy to re-unite

We have again been able to re-unite two of our cutest kids Renjing and Anjila, a brother and sister who have been living with us for the last sixteen months. The children used to live with their aunty (mother’s younger sister), and they have always called her mum. While they were in Aishworya their aunty was always in touch with the kids and often came to visit; now she is finally able to look after them herself and they are glad to be together again – though she is grateful to Aishworya for taking care of them!

Renjing in school uniform

Anjila smiling at the camera

Here the pair give us some cheeky smiles!!

Examinations

Children studying hard for their exams!

The children had their school 1^st terminal exam. The exam is held three times a year. As  all our children have obtained excellent marks in their previous exams we believe the children will make us proud this year too. After the exam the children had a 20 days summer holiday.

More helping hands

We have been very lucky to get good friends who have helped us in many ways like, giving clothes food and donation too. The women of Nepal Police Committee came to visit Aishworya and the children.

Nepal Police Commitee women with the children

They were very impressed with our wonderful kids for their talent and good behavior. They donated food including two sacks of rice, some juice and clothes for the children and we are very grateful for their kindness!

Surprise Visit

We had a surprise visit by our very good friends, Stephanie from London and Mark Wilson from New Zealand. Stephanie was for two weeks with us as Mark was only for 2 days.

Some of our lovely volunteers

It was a wonderful and memorable surprise visit by our both dear friends. We all were so happy to meet them again and hope to see them in future again.

Apprenticeships

Some of the children have now been offered the chance to start apprenticeships. Three of our older boys, Durga, Marich and Buddhi are now learning carpentering at a workshop called Shri Krishna Furniture; it’s named after the owner, who has kindly agreed not only to train the boys but to have them live with him too! The boys still go to morning school, and but now they spend the afternoon at the workshop – and they often come back to visit us. Another boy, Yamraj, is being taught how to repair air conditioning units and fix electronic goods by Mr. Ishowor Dahal at the Utsav Maintenance and Training Center. After 3years of training he will be able to get a job anywhere in Nepal with a good salary.

The girls, Rashmi and Dhanu, would like to do a beauty and hairdressing course but that costs money so for now they go to school in the morning and in the afternoon they learn about computers and improve their English with the help of the volunteers.

As for Jack, and Yogesh, they are interested in singing and are spending lots of time practicing!

Health Issues

There have been some periods when all the children were well but unfortunately now we have few kids suffering from high fever and mumps.

These little ones hope to be better soon

However we are taking very good care of them!

We celebrated Nepali New Year in the middle of April, so Happy New Year everyone! Then, soon after New Year we also celebrated “Mother’s Day”.

Mother’s day has always been very special not only for the children but also for our director, Nirmala Ghimire. We call her “Amaa”, which means “mother”.
Here are some words from her…

“Mother is a very strong word and this strong word holds lots of responsibilities towards my aim. The children who come under my shelter have always been very close to my heart and life, I thank god for making me the mother of  so many children who are in need and I want to tell all my children I love them a lot and my life without them is incomplete. I will always be there for the children.”

Nirmala (Aama)

Happy Mother's Day!

With the New Year the children are also starting another new school year. As all the children have obtained excellent marks on their last final exams, everyone has been promoted one class ahead. The children have once
again made us so proud by getting the highest marks at school.

We are also proud that thanks to our kind and dedicated group of sponsors, donors and friends, this will be the children’s 3rd consecutive year at school full time, a huge achievement for us! We would like to thank all of our friends and sponsors for their continued support in helping us to keep education a top priority at Aishworya. Together let’s wish all our children “Good Luck” for the coming school year!

In addition to this, one of our oldest girls, Nima Sherpa (14) will start studying Computer lessons at school from this year. She is very excited and happy and is also able to practice at home, thanks to one of our donors who kindly provided Aishworya with a computer last year.

Nima is looking forward to her computer classes.

We believe that enabling our children to gain additional skills such as computing, as well as vocational training in plumbing and electronics, will help to give them every opportunity to pursue their dreams once they grow up.

Volunteers

After living together with us for 10 months, our lovely volunteers Petri and Kaisla from Finland have gone back to their country.

Kaisla and Petri with the children

It was very sad when they left but at the same time we are very happy to have such great friends for this children’s home and we want to thank them for all of the good work they have done for us.

The whole of our Aishworya family will miss Petri and Kaisla a lot. We thank them for being a part of our family, and we wish them good luck for their futures. We hope to see them both again very soon!

Volunteers with the kids

This month we had some new volunteers from ICYE Europe, Maggie (22) and Sophie (22) from Switzerland, and Josephina (26) from Sweden. The volunteers were with us for a month.

Justine in the swimming pool with Asmila

Another volunteer, Justine from England, spent a week with us and Justine is a police officer in London. The
kids were very happy to meet her, and especially enjoyed going swimming in the pool!

New Kids

Six new children have joined us at Aishworya over the last two months. Sumi and Robin came to us in April, and lived with us for 3 weeks.

Sumi, age 11

Sumi, an 11 year-old girl and Robin, a 7 year-old boy were rescued from doing hard labor work and brought to Aishworya.

Although they are not related, they were from the same town, and thankfully, the police were successfully able to find their parents, and so Sumi and Robin are now back with their families.

Robin, age 7

Robin, Sumi and Sushmita together

The other 4 children are a girl called Puja (6) and three boys called James (10), Adesh (11) and Rajkumar (11).
Puja was brought by the community police who found her in the street alone. The three boys came to us separately, and we are still slowly figuring out their stories, and what has happened to them.

Happy Birthday

Every year the children celebrate their birthday together on the 12th May, as we do not know the children’s real date of birth. The 12th May is Pramila, our Assistant Director’s birthday, so we decided that all of the children could celebrate their birthdays together with Pramila.

That means that on May 12th, we all got a year older together!
Let’s wish all our children a very Happy Birthday!!

The Birthday Cake!

Swimming!

These days it is very hot in Kathmandu, so the children were taken for a swim by our volunteers. Some of the children know how to swim already, and some are just learning, but they all really enjoy it, and we want to thank all our volunteers for joining the kids and giving them such a wonderful time.

Playing in the pool

Here at Aishworya we are firm believers in giving these children the most well-rounded upbringing that we possibly can, and that includes doing normal, fun things like picnics, trips to the park and the cinema, and of course, learning to swim.

That’s all of our news for now, but please stay in touch and keep checking our website for more updates.