Getting ready for Dashain...

Firstly, it is STILL raining! Monsoon does not seem to want to finish this year. We are having bakingly hot days and rainy nights at the moment - fortunately we are all still in good spirits!

We have had two new arrivals, Ged and Freya. Ged has been working hard at Shree Krishna teaching as well as at StreetKids and Asha Foundation. He has much experience with sports and has been putting his skill sets to use organising many different games and activities at our various placements.

Freya arrived on Saturday and is settling in well. She is here on a Film and Photography placement and as part of this, one of the projects we have asked her to do is make a short film with the Street Kids children about the importance of hand-washing as we have been teaching them about this. As it is about to be Dashain and they are about to break up from school for a whole month, we thought that this would give them a great focus, so when we go up to Street Kids this afternoon we will begin to plan how to do this and get the boys to write a script and think of bits they can act out – very excited!

We have also been making other plans for Dashain and thinking of lots of arts and crafts activities we can do with children. Hilary, one of our current volunteers, has already been in full swing teaching the children sewing and on Friday they made hairbands and bracelets! They absolutely loved the chance to do something different and to come away with something at the end was very exciting for them.

Finally, as you may know, Street Kids have recently moved house. The new place is bigger and better equipped for their lifestyles and has a huge garden area for them to play in. However, currently the garden is littered with rubbish and rubble so needs clearing as well as the metal roof put up and the table being put under it; this will mean that the children have somewhere to do their homework and then have a good run around and burn off some of their limitless energy! I am pleased to say that money has been approved by PoD Charity to sort out this outdoor area for the boys, Asmita and Amaa and so work will begin on that in the next few weeks. Here are some before photos... After ones will be following!

If you would like to join the team here in Nepal please email Gemma on gemma@podvolunteer.org