First of all, we hope that you and your loved ones are healthy and safe. This is a trying time for everyone, and we are so grateful to all of our supporters who continue to check in on the foundation and its works during this crisis.

According to official reports, as of April 27, 2020 Nepal has had 52 confirmed positive, 16 recovered, and 0 deaths due to COVID-19. We realize that the testing efforts need to be increased to get a better picture, but overall the country seems to be responding well to the crisis in order to flatten the infection curve. Nepal has been in a strict lockdown for more than a month now, but the citizens seem to be cooperating with the measures. This cooperation has most likely limited the spread of infection, and in the areas where we work, we have not seen confirmed cases yet. We are cautiously hopeful that it will continue this way. 

Even though we are not able to conduct our normal programming, we have been active from the very beginning to help the local community in fighting against COVID-19 virus. Some of the steps we have taken so far include: 

1. As soon as the Nepal government announced guidelines to follow in our daily lives to limit the spread of the virus, we went community to community to spread the words - by posting posters and raising awareness. and distributing pamphlets about the guidelines. During this campaign our team met with community leaders who expressed their thanks to our team for taking the lead in getting the word out to the community. 


2. Even after the lockdown went into effect, our team worked (virtually) to attempt to contact all our Bahinis (younger sisters) through different channels. Whether through a phone call or a message on social media, we wanted to make sure they were safe and also let them know that we were available for virtual mentoring. Sadly, many of the girls we work with do not have easy access to communication, and this is something our team is brainstorming ideas on. 


3. Our Nepal Team leaders have been in continuous contact with the local government in discussing how we could help in this difficult time.  When the local municipalities started providing basic assistance like food and other daily necessities for those who could not afford them, we decided to provide some support for such efforts. We know that there are a lot of people who live on daily wages and when they could not work they could not afford to buy food for their families. Many of the girls we work with come from such backgrounds. Local leaders have expressed appreciation for our support and have assured us that it will be put in good use.


4. One of our most popular programs is the work that we do through our clubs. Sadly, like everything else, these are also not possible to conduct safely at the moment. However, our team attempted to conduct virtual clubs for anybody that may have access and was interested in taking part. We have seen great interest in this, but only a handful of the girls are able to participate. We have seen that this type of service could be invaluable as a way to remain engaged and empowered, and we want to find ways to expand on this. Many thanks to our mentors who are going the extra distance to amke this possible.


5. Lastly, we are conducting a study of the digital divide that exists in our communities to determine what steps we must take to make virtual learning and mentoring possible for all of the girls we work with. We know that this is a big undertaking, but we have to think big in order to address this crisis as well as any future challenges we may face.  

After the earthquake of April 2015, a make-shift bamboo school was built with strong cooperation between our foundation, local authorities, and community volunteers, which enabled hundreds of students to go back to the school. After that, we were able to come together with international support and local energy to build a permanent school. The current situation is even more complicated than that disaster, but we believe that our support of a small donation to the local government’s COVID-19 Crisis Fund is a good initial strategy to alleviate hunger triggered by the pandemic. We firmly believe that cooperation and not competition between NGOs and local government is the key to survive and revive, and eventually thrive from the current crisis as well.

Foundation Adviser, Nabin talks about the challenges posed by COVID-19 and how it mirrors April 2015 earthquake

In April, we celebrated Nepali Mother's Day. While this was not the most festive mother's day, a few of the girls decided to create handmade cards to show their appreciation for their mothers. We thank all of the mothers worldwide for their daily sacrifices, love and encouragement that keeps us going, especially in the most difficult times.

We also look back at a wonderful celebration we held for Thulimaya, a "grand" mother.