As a result of the civil war that is going on in Nepal for the last seven years or to family problems, there are many parents in Nepal who have to raise their children alone. Most of the time they live in very poor conditions and barely manage to get anything to eat for themselves and their children. In the early morning these parents go out and try to earn some money, and the children who are 5 years or older have to go along and help the parents sweeping the street, carrying rocks or work in the carpet factories They can also end up in the brick factories where they have to carry clay. The children who are younger than 5 years are being locked up in the hut. In this situation the remains of the nightly fire has caused a lot of severe burns and mutulations to young children. This also happened to our little girl from the mountains, Lamimaya - no one was there to get her out of the fire and the result is horrible. Besides the danger of burning themself the children are often exposed to sharp objects, such as knives, and dangerous materials (petrol for example).


All these things make it essential that small children have a place like the Contact Centre to go to during the daytime. Aside from the love and attention it is also very important that the child has contact with other children. Learning to play and communicate with them, which is the reason that the centre is named Contact Centre. A lot of parents are willing to send their sons to the centre but not their daughters, since these girls are going to move out of the house by the age of 13 as a result of an arranged marriage. They see it as a waste of effort, or as they say here 'why water the plants of the neighbours?' We try to encourage these parents by giving the girls a little bit of rice to take home at the end of the day, it disturbs the equality but a lot of times it works.

A while ago I received an e-mail from one of our sponsors, Wil Mosk from Armas Europe, who asked if I could think of a new project for children. The condition was that it had to be closley related with the primal needs of children. I immediately thought of the Contact Centre, because it really needed to move to a better location and it focused completely on the primal needs of young children. I did the maths and delivered an outcome of what it would cost to move the centre to a nice location which had room for 35 children, the costs of hiring two teachers and one cook, one warm meal a day (Dal Bhat) and four cups of tea and all the necessary educational supplies.
All this came down to an annual amount of 5000 euros, which is only 140 euros for each child per year! This amount provides a child with food, safety, fun and education for a whole year and prevents the possibility of child labour and dangerous environments.

The answer came back quick and clear: “I love it, it's a deal! You can count on me for the next 4 years.”

That caused a lot of jumping around out of joy and wiping away a few tears - this is fantastic!!!

We opened the new Contact Centre on the 17th of May, it was a happy event and next to the CCSD staff we had 35 happy little children. Our new volunteer Chantal ten Have, is also working in the new centre. She helps the teachers and the children with their English and also tries to improve the quality of teaching. So far this happens in the 'parrot mode', the children repeating everything the teacher says without knowing what they are saying. Bit by bit we try to introduce things as: 'teaching the children to think about questions themselves' and 'to come up with questions about the things they are learning'. This is not an easy process and will take a lot of time. Chantal also plays a lot of games with the children so that they learn English through playing. Roos Dusseljee started this way of teaching the children already in the old Contact Centre in the autumm of 2003, it was very important that this became a structural part of the education in the Contact Centre so we are very happy to have found someone who is willing to continue this. We still had a little money left from the collection that Roos had organised in her primary school in Holland. I used this money to buy a water purification installation and a watertank for the centre, I also bought furniture and equipment for the kitchen.

So, to make a quick review, we are safe for the first 4 years, especially the 35 little children who are saved from a very hard and dangerous existence! Therefore we are immensely grateful to Wil Mosk and her company Armas Europe and to all the work that has been done at the primary school 'De Ark' in Haarlem to help the poor children of Nepal.

I really hope that other people or companies, while reading this, got inspired by the idea of Wil Mosk and Armas Europe are willing to take over the sponsoring from Armas Europe after the first 4 years. Just imagine that a € 140 means one safe and happy year, knowing that not one rupee will go into the wrong pockets, isn't that just incredible?

Rene Veldt, from the Veldwerk organisation, Kortom, we zitten de eerste 4 jaar goed. En speciaal deze kleine kinderen die voor de poorten van de hel zijn weggesleept.
Met onze onuitsprekelijke dank aan Wil Mosk en haar bedrijf Armas Europe en aan al het actiewerk van Basisschool de Ark uit Haarlem, voor de kansarme kinderen van Nepal.

En ik hoop ook van harte dat andere mensen of bedrijven, het idee van Wil Mosk en Armas Europe willen overnemen. Want bedenk hierbij, voor maar 140 euro een heel jaar lang een kind een veilig bestaan geven, zonder dat er ook maar één rupee ergens aan de strijkstok blijft hangen, dat is toch geweldig.