What can you do for Nepal if you are not there?

 Thanks to Edventure Nepal, a children’s home in Pokhara, for helping to distribute the relief materials smoothly.

After the earthquake on 25th April, since, first I was in Kathmandu, and second, I had been a helper in a local orphanage for years, I immediately started fundraising on social network (Facebook) for relieving the victims.

During this period, besides receiving the donations from all around the world, no matter whom I know in person or not, I had also received some questions about helping Nepal in person.

Let me take a chance here to explain further about my background and what I had carried out here.
My experience in Nepal had allowed me to search for and get locals’ help as well as to obtain the most updated local information since I had been a volunteer in Nepal for years. I started volunteering in a children’s home (Edventure Nepal) in 2011 and organising workcamps with Voltra (a Hong Kong charitable organization specialize in international volunteer services), called Love and Light, which had already brought 57 volunteers from Hong Kong to Edventure Nepal.

In addition, my social network built before had helped a lot since I was a finance reporter of a Hong Kong newspaper after graduated from journalism. And I am also a writer with three books as well as a travel blogger.

Therefore, I, during this period, mainly focused on the connections with internationals, Nepali rescue teams and any individuals who were concerned. I was also responsible for fundraising, publishing the threads on the Internet and carrying out the first-hand report here.

Apart from the above, I had realised that I may not be as helpful as I expected in some cases. Taking the relief material delivery two days ago as an example, the 11 members of Edventure Nepal were responsible for all coordination and communications with local authorities, police and victims since they got the language advantage; and in term of physical ability, I was not as strong as my teammates for carrying heavy things and distribution. In fact, I could carry around 10 kilograms of things, but it is still a small thing compared with them. Therefore, my main responsibilities were doing interviews and photo-taking for updated information and records.

Sometimes I was also worried that volunteers like me would become a burden to them as we might need others to save us if we were in trouble. For example, the road condition was so bad due to the earthquake and the rainfall to the disaster area on the first day, I was so afraid of the possibility of car accident. Luckily, my teammates, all the volunteers and the driver, were all Nepalese, they knew the situation well and the way to handle if any accidents happened.

Everything about our delivery went smoothly, however, we cannot always take luck for granted. Some of my foreign friends experienced another story. They rented a taxi and a motorcycle to deliver the relief materials to the affected area without detailed planning, such as coordination with locals and also no inspection beforehand. Therefore, they found out that there was enough help from the government and other organizations already. They, at the end, could only put the relief materials together with the stacks of stock which was already delivered there.

Thankfully, with the help of the volunteers of Edventure Nepal, we could coordinate with local authorities and police and inspect the situation of the affected area before delivering our help. At the end, all the relief materials had been successfully delivered to the villagers without any administrative cost.

We had already coordinated with local authorities, police and social workers before delivering our help.

Endless assistance from Edventure Nepal’s members.

It was very important to have Nepalese volunteers to lead the team because they know the local language and familiar with the situation.

So back to the topic, how can you help Nepal if you are not here? Frankly speaking, if you are not an expert knowing how to rebuild quake proof houses, but are just eager to help, there is nothing you can help and you may actually become a burden to the others. Because for us, other than doing relief work, we will need to spare extra time to take care of foreign volunteers, to arrange their transportation, meals and accommodation. Due to the current situation, these are not on our priorities.

Besides asking for helping in person, donation of stuff is a popular question to us. We do need some stuff, however, it is now so difficult to transport them. A lot of them have arrived the Kathmandu airport by air and cracks occurred on the runway since an influx of material imports had exceeded the usual amount and reached the limit. The Nepal government also does not have enough manpower and resources to deliver the materials to the disaster area and this makes nearly all of them are hoarded. At the moment, we prefer to buy some necessaries locally and only call for stuff donations when the local logistics improves.

You actually can give a hand in different ways even you are not in Nepal, such as joining fundraising events in Hong Kong, connecting us with international networks, translating articles, carrying out administrative work, updating information on various platforms, handling the post-sale logistics of my charity book sales. Some people are quite passionate and organised different activities after the earthquake in order to raise the fund, namely the charity buffet of Morocco Restaurant in Cheung Chau and the ad-hoc fundraising for Nepal initiated by Mr. Kwong Kwok Wai, and helped by volunteers in the event Living Cheung Chau. One of my friends is going to organise a Music Night to raise the fund too.

We may, after a period, recruit some helpers to rebuild habitats for the victims, but for right now, we need to have enough money for buying basic rescue items and rebuilding their houses later before having volunteers coming here.

If you wish to donate money, I strongly suggest that everyone should take a look if your money will be contributed effectively, like if your money will go directly to those in need, or if the organisations you want to donate have cooperation with any local organisations. Many overseas groups that wish to come to help have got rejected by the Nepal government due to the local restriction and regulatory for overseas charities. In my opinion, the Nepal government should alter the rules under this post-earthquake situation. This act, upholding the rules and regulations, regardless of the situation, has made many countries cannot join the aids in time.

You may have thought of donating money to the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund (PMNRF) and wonder if it is helpful. My answer is, “I doubt.” The Nepal government is known for its corruption and disregards their citizens’ public critique about their corruption, inefficiency, incompetence and bureaucracy throughout the up-to-now rescue in the country. A local from Gorkha mocked the government’s rescue that, a few days ago, a helicopter put down 1 tent and 3 bags of rice to a nearby village, then left with a bill of USD25, 000 in the spending record. The locals regarded this as one of the sarcasm and were not surprised at all. It was not the first time. They now can only wait for aids from non-profit charities, as they never expect the government will come.

Not only Edventure Nepal has started fundraising for Nepalese, but also many individuals in Nepal are doing the same in order to buy goods and deliver them to the victims directly. Before making donations, you may search some more information for different parties that are helping in Nepal.

It was a joy to us seeing the smiles of victims after receiving our relief materials.

If you are interested to know more about our relief work in Nepal, please refer to our FB page: Light on Nepal

Translated by Sandy Chu.