During my trekkings through the mountains of Nepal we stayed in simple lodges. I noticed small young children working there. They gathered fire wood, hauled heavy backpacks and carried heavy baskets everyday to earn their bread. Once I asked my guide about this and he had a perplexing response: "Many parents are too poor to take care of their children, so they make them work in the lodges in exchange for food and shelter." Although surprised, his answer was not much different than my guess. One time I came across a bright kid during my trekking adventure. I noticed some different but encouraging behaviour in this child. The boy worked all day to take care of tourists: he carried their backpacks, gathered wood for the fireplace, cleaned rooms where tourists stayed and took care of food and drinks for them. In his "spare" time he talked to tourists. This helped him to learn to speak English and some basic arithmetic. Seemingly luckier than many other kids, however, without any extra help this boy will also lead the life his parents and forefathers did, work hard his entire life, without any hope of creating a better future for himself.
Nowadays I have been migrated to Nepal. Daily I am working for Nepali Children. Of course I also spend time to do other things to make it possible to stay at Nepal. Eg. I am learning the Nepali language and I try to understand the Nepali culture and habits.
My inner feeling is I belong at Nepal. I am also realizing that it will not be easy to have a living at this amazing country.
Shuikhet is the village where Bodharaj was born at 1985. It is a village 16 km from Pokhara. From the age of 17 Bodharaj starts working as a trekking guide. That is also how he met Jolanda at 2015. Since his childhood he is involved in social work. Eg: He was president of the community library , did volunteer work at a large INGO and was also involved at other social organizations that helped children. Bodharaj loves social works. Specially when he can help children who really needs help. It fullfils his life. He finds out Nepali Children is the best option to help children because the founder Jolanda works by heart and this young organization is succesful at many projects. Also Nepali Children will be a platform for social work for the children in his home village. A lot of families at Suikhet have a hard life and daily face a lot of difficulties. Because most of them are farmers, they have every day food but most of time too little money for education, medical care or other expenses they need for living.
Nepali Children gives Bodharaj a full time job. During this time, he will be your trekking guide if you book a holiday by Jolanda. And he will also be involved in all projects of Nepali Children, Nepali Children guest house and support Jolanda as much as possible.
Since 2019 Sarada is involved at Nepali Children. She is teacher in English subject at Shishuwa (Pokhara). During the stay of Jolanda at her homestay at 2018, she shared her dream to become an active member of her living community, but she has no ideas how she can realize this. Her job during six days a week, being a mother and also a responsible person in her family, takes a lot of time and gives little free time to spend. But during all the talkings with Jolanda, they found a way how to deal with this lack of time. She becomes the contact person for the Dutch sponsors of sponsorchildren at Shishuwa.
Since July 2019 Ganga is working for Nepali Children. She has a very responsible job for taking care of the children who are living at the hostel. This means she cooks all meals, caring the children and bring all rules and regulation into practice. But also she is doing all shopping and is working at the vegetable garden. As a single mom she had a lot of problems at past. It was difficult to survive but with her small jobs she had little money to spend. Nowadays she has a regular income, and a respective job. This means her issues are solved. Ganga feels very happy by the support of Nepali Children, in the person of Jolanda.
The goal of the foundation is to help disadvantaged children by offering them a safe place to stay and enabling them to receive an education so that they are able to create a better future. Another goal is to involve local Nepali people in helping them to maintain the foundation without any financial support from the west.
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