Pink survived the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that hit
Nepal in 2015. Happy to be alive, she
established an NGO (Editor: Light On Charity) to support earthquake victims. Nowadays, she spends half the year in Nepal.
Pokhara is the 2nd largest city in Nepal
and is a famous tourist destination. Its
centerpiece is the Phewa Lake: surrounded by Himalayan mountains, in the evening
the sun casts its red fire onto the still waters, slowly disappearing behind the
green mountains. This is scenery best
viewed at the right time of a year: March to May and October to December. In winter
and during monsoon, it is rare to meet foreigners and some shops in the tourist
districts are closed.
7 years ago, Pink, by accident, visited Nepal during monsoon
to enjoy rains.
If
you close your fists you have just a little, if you open them, you have the
whole world
10 years ago, Pink heard this saying in Tibet and decided
to quit her job and travel around the world.
In the 3rd year she arrived in Nepal. By this time she had decided that instead
of simply sight-seeing, she wanted to do something significant. The long term bonding between Pink and Nepal began
from the moment she saw a torn English advertisement pasted on a lamp post in Pokhara, recruiting
volunteers.
It was an advertisement from
a children’s home called “Edventure Nepal”, which was established by a
26-year-old Nepalese called Amrit. Pink
recalled how surprised she was when she met the young man who was willing to
put the life of 4 children on his shoulders.
Helping Amrit was a single mum called Tulasi: these two adults were responsible
for the care of 4 children’s daily life and tuition fees.
The Nepalese Government
provided no financial support for children’s homes. So Tulasi and Amrit worked
to earn all expenses. “At that time, Edventure
Nepal had been set up for only a month and apart from the enclosure walls, there
was nothing, not even a bed,” said Pink.
At first the Edventure
Nepal children’s home was located in rural area. To get there, Pink would take an
hour-long bus journey from the city centre early in the morning and then walk
for 45 minutes to arrive at the children’s home just on time to take children
to school.
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| “Big Sister” Pink is a full-time volunteer for Edventure
Nepal. Since 2011, she has visited her
sisters and brothers every year. |
Call
to support the children
To improve the situation at the children’s home, Pink recruited
travelers who wanted to serve the local community. Communicating online, she invited
people to bring clothes, stationery, furniture, and cooking utensils. The
quality of public education was low, with teachers being unreliable, so she
began collecting donations for private schooling.
Since her early three month volunteering period, Pink
has returned more and more often to Nepal to visit her “brothers and
sisters”.
She said: “It has been astonishing to see the changes
in those children, whose hair had to be shaved because of lice, who didn’t smile,
were so small and always scared of the past. They’ve grown up to be clean, always
smiling and can now speak English. It
shows the importance of a good education, proper care, sufficient nutrient and
love. The love that Tulasi and Amrit
gave them, helped them grow up healthily.”
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| Pokhara surrounded by snowy mountains. Nepal’s second city is famous as the starting
point for trekking in the Annapurna mountains. |
“Uncle” Armit and “Mummy” Tulasi are taking good care
of all the children, at the same time they are all positively influenced by
their “Big Sister” Pink. A few months
ago, 13-year old Prakash said to Pink that he wanted to be a social worker to
help her. Pink felt so touched that the children
wanted to help others and society. She
replied to Prakash, “I will wait for you but you have to finish college first.”
7 years on, Edverture Nepal has moved into the city
and now houses 12 children. With Pink’s
help, the organization has developed a self-sustaining operational model, working
with an NGO from Hong Kong to host “workcamps” for volunteers who come to the children’s
home to carry out cultural exchange.
Part of the program fee is in the form as donations.
 |
Pokhara city is in a valley. Many years ago, Pink had to take an hour-long
bus ride, followed by a 45 minute walk to reach the mountainside Edventure
Nepal.
|
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Although children call Amrit “Uncle”, he is actually
more like their father.
|
A year ago, Pink and Amrit rented a building that they
now run as a hotel in Lakeside, Pokhara – a social enterprise from which 20% of
the revenue is put into Edventure Nepal with the aim to be the financial
support in the future.
Everything was going well until the Nepalese Government
changed the rules. Now, all children’s homes need to fulfill certain
requirements in order to continue operation.
Edventure Nepal had to rent a house (instead of an apartment) and must
provide a library, playground, a psychologist and social worker – all this with
no funding from the Government.
Pink and Amrit immediately set about fund-raising. Luckily (at the time of interview) 70% of the
target sum amount HK$350,000 was reached (Editor: and they had reached the
target after 6 months of fund-raising).
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| Pink put her time on rebuilding Nepal and established
an NGO called “Light On Charity”. |
