In June 2024, our Deputy Chair and Nepal Liaison, Mingma Sherpa, travelled to Mikwakhola in the Taplejung district and sat down with the Village Development Committee and local villagers. These are very remote villages, high in the mountains between Everest and Kanchenjunga, set amid fertile farmland. Getting there takes time and effort, and that is rather the point: the people who live and teach there are the ones who know what their schools need.
This is how The Pearl Lotus Fund prefers to work. Rather than deciding from afar what would be useful, Mingma works with the Village Development Committee to ascertain what is actually wanted, and then we respond. It is a slower way of doing things, but it means the help that follows fits the place it is meant for.
One concern rose above the rest. A school building damaged in the 2015 earthquake is still in use, still cracked, and at high risk of collapse. The committee flagged it as a critical priority, and it has become the focus of the year ahead.
The visit also brought neighbours to the table. School committees in surrounding villages approached us for help of their own: English books, library buildings and toilet blocks. Each of those conversations has shaped the projects we are now setting out to support.
If you would like to help these villages educate their children, we would be grateful for your support. The Pearl Lotus Fund is now a registered Australian charity, and donations are tax-deductible.
