As Promised – So Much News, Part 2!
Goodness! So much news to share – I might even have to create a part 3!! I hope it’s not too overwhelming.
So, here we are, sharing more news about our visit to the school at the end of January.
In Nora’s memory…
One of our dear supporters, Anita, tragically lost her 19year old daughter, Nora, some years ago and since that time dedicated to turn her tragic loss into a force for good. Each year she fundraises to help others in Nora’s memory and is especially keen to support educational projects. After discussion about our priorities, and much to the delight of the school staff and students, Anita made a generous donation to Altevette Project to buy books for our children.
Teachers are absolutely delighted and so we went shopping “Nepalese Style” for all manner of books and teaching aids for the classrooms. So, all this in memory of Nora whose story has been shared with our girls.
First – some much needed text books and study guides for our Year 10 students who were facing their National Exams at a centralised Examination Centre (more about that another time).
As it’s the first time the students have faced this level of study and examination, teachers prioritised some study guides, which we were happy to find locally……
Fun at Pilgrim’s…
When we got back to Kathmandu we took the opportunity to visit the famous Pilgrim’s Book Store who stock a wide range of International books as well as having their own publishing company. We were delighted that the “children’s book” expert helped us select a wide range of books and showed us dual language books so the children can read English alongside their mother tongue. wonderful – we snapped up these early learning aids too.
We were delighted to be able to buy so many books – 120 fiction and educational books – for our children of all ages and abilities and will visit again in June when we’re back at the school for a mid year trip.
Children waited patiently for the books to arrive and then excitedly got stuck into exploring.
We’re so grateful to have these resources and have enough of the donation in hand to buy more more in June and to stock the classrooms in Upper Mustang too!
Thank you Nora and to mum, Anita, for bringing this joy and benefit to our children.
Year 11 – Whoo hoo hoo!!!
As we reported in our recent newsletter “New Beginnings For 2023” – check it out here if you’d like a refresher:
https://altevetteproject.org/
…everyone at the school have been working hard towards attaining a Year 11 Licence. This will be a first for a school in Upper Mustang and I’m pleased to report that this week on 4th April their hard work was rewarded with the Licence being awarded.
This is an unbelievable achievement and almost unheard of for a monastic school to have achieved this standard of secular education. Heartfelt Congratulations for everyone’s hard work and grateful thanks to all of you for being part of that. Without government grants the school is dependent on donations.
THANK-YOU! THANK-YOU! everyone!
Of course this hard earned privilege comes with conditions – and some facilities need to be upgraded to show the school is capable of delivering this higher standard of education. As we reported in the “New Beginnings” newsletter, we have 2 girls in Year 10 together with 7 boys forming the Year 10 and hopefully soon to be Year 11 Co-ed class.
When we visited in January, one of our girls shared her aspiration to become a doctor. Just imagine if we can enable that – a girl born into poverty in a remote mountain village becoming a doctor! The gift of education has no boundaries to the benefits it can bring!
We now need to upgrade science and computer lab facilities to the next level and ask if anyone might be able to make a donation to support this fundraiser to make this happen?
Science, Here We Come….
Current facilities are woefully inadequate with a minimal equipment in single room doubling up as a teaching area….
And a lot of the science teaching materials we purchased in 2020 being put away in storage due to the lack of a suitable teaching facility.
Work has already begun on a 2 new facilities and previously purchased materials have been taken out of storage.
Please can you help us raise the funds for this?
A Focus on Early Learning
And finally, from Year 11 to Kindergarten – not forgetting the little ones and their early learning & development. A stimulating new environment is being developed, where teachers can give the little ones a more creative and encouraging beginning to their education journey. Actually, there are so many little ones, we need 2 areas!
If this touches your heart too – please help us raise the funds to cover the cost of refurbishment and purchase of more early learning and development aids when we revisit in June.
Some Blog Changes Afoot!
And finally – hope you’re not bored with such a loong newsletter! I’m thinking of changing the way the newsletter is created and distributed and improving some fundraising endeavours (thanks to the lovely Emma for helping me out on the changes that will be needed to our website!).
Despite your amazing generosity, fundraising is increasingly challenging and I need to widen our wonderful network as the needs of the school increase!
Raising the money to build the school was a challenge but having done so, now we are committed to support the ongoing running costs of the school, which receives no government funding. Please help us if you can and please be assured we don’t take any expenses from donated monies. Apart from bank charges, which we can’t avoid, we’re 100% efficient in sending all donated money to the school.
If anyone has any “social media” skills – or maybe if your children have ?!! – and would be willing to volunteer some support, please let me know.
I have a lot of short video snips that would benefit from sharing and I can’t do that in the newsletter formatted like this. Anyway – just asking in case anyone can help. And letting you know some changes maybe coming. Ok let’s see how we get on….. Still early days in developing these ideas.
Please email me on Linda@Altevetteproject.org if you have any skills in this area.
It just remains for me to thank you all for your continued support and making all this happen and enabling our students to receive the gift of an education.
THANK-YOU, THANK-YOU, THANK-YOU!!!!!
