Stichting Veldwerk at Nepal

Secretariaat: Stichting Veldwerk Postbus 163 1850 AD Heiloo The Netherlands

Tel:+31 (0)72-5339585 veldwerk@gmail.com IBAN nr. NL51ABNA0543703266 Attn. Stichting Veldwerk, p/a Egmond binnen Bank: ABN-Amro 543703266

It's just like the good old days again in our children's house……..

Like we mentioned earlier, we have moved into the new children's house, and what a relief that was!All in all, the whole process took a lot of effort and time, in which we were not sure if we could pull it off, and if so, when?

The main problem was the contact with our implementing local partner, which is a problem that unfortunately is not new to quite a number of international organizations that are active in Nepal. So hereby, to all of those who want to be active in Nepal through a local implementing partner; be carefull choosing with who you want to do business! Even though we started out well, the atmosphere between us and that the partner worsened fast in the last couple of years. In order to not get the children involved in the conlict we decided that it was best to avoid being too much present in the children's house. However, this had an negative effect on the development of the children. As described before, the implementing partner is in Nepal officially in charge of the project. As donor organization there is not much else to do then to cancel the made agreements and pull out of the project. This caused for a lot of frustration on our side, because the given construction would mean that we lost our influence in the project in which we have been involved for so long. At the same time, we could see that the money, ment to help the children as agreed on, was not spend on these children. So cancelling the agreement would feel like deserting these children which we had given the feeling that we would do all in our power to provide them a better future.
All of this mend that we had to work with great caution in order to try and get the children out within the legal possibilities and without to push the implementing partner into loot the assets, and above all, affect the children. A task that, more than once seemed close to impossible.

Now, we are relieved to inform you that we managed. All the children are happily gathered in the new children's house. Furthermore, we managed to make the complete staff come along which means a great deal for the children, since they are the once that are most around, replacing the absent parents, and because we have been working with them fors so long that we wouldn't want to loose them. However, the period of conflict and neglect has left its traces, the children have been lacking medical check ups, especially the dentist and the optician have been busy repairing the dental complaints and prescribing several pairs of glasses.

The old children's house had not had running water in the last 4 months, the two pumps to pump up water from the earth were also broken to make things worse. When one of the kids, Rakesh, gave it a last try, he slipped and landed with his face on the pump. This caused one of his front teeth to be knocked out which made him refuse to attend school until it was put back where it belonged. Being in that international teenager age where you don't want to have a big black hole in your mouth when you smile at a girl in that same age I guess.


I could relate to his situation (that is the tooth, not the age), when one of my front tooth break out while chewing on something too hard. Being back in Holland I took the opportunity of paying a visit to the dentist in Heiloo, the village that I am from. Unfortunately, the bill turned out very Dutch as well. When he saw that this was quite an amount for me to come up with, he decided to give me a break, given that we were doing a good job over here. However, I had to make the promise of doing something about the lost front tooth of Rakesh as well. So, thanks to dentist de Vries from Heiloo, both me and Rakesh are walking around with a complete set of teeth again!


The new children's house in Sankhu deinetely lives up to the expectations. Although a bit small, it is all the space we need for now. It's clean, well supplied and with fresh running water. So once again, you can see the children crawling together on the floor every evening to enjoy their Dal Bath. Also, the dancing teacher comes to teach the children every saturday, practising dances and plays with them.

A lot of people have already come to pay the children a visit in their new house. Amongst others the ladies from the Dutch foundation Mahamataa, who are going to be our main sponsors for the contact centre, together with the 'wilde ganzen' foundation and the NCDO. But the children also welcomed Tanja and Ben, Engely ter Steeg and Arnold and Anneke van Westerhoven. The children didn't let the opportunity slip to rush into their costumes and show the guests their dancing skills.

So we can feel that we're back where we want to be, running a children's house in Kathmandu that is save, clean and booming with atmosphere, while ate the same time focussed on offering the children living their a respectable future. A good moment to thank everybody that was direct or indirect involved in moving the children there and to our sponsors that made it all possible. Al in all a big adventure that would not be out to place in book form…who knows, maybe when things get quiet around here.


You are of course still more than welcome to visit our project, or help us through a donation. Your support, physically and financially, will enable us to complete this project!

A big thanks in advance, also on behalve of the board of SVN in the Netherlands,
Ook namens het bestuur van Stichting Veldwerk in Nederland

René Veldt,
Stichting Veldwerk and Cross Borders Nepal.

veldwerk@gmail.com
Bank: ABN-Amro 543703266
IBAN nr. NL51ABNA0543703266
Attn. Stichting Veldwerk,
p/a Egmond Binnen
The Netherlands.