SPONSOR ME!!!!!!!!!!!!

Support us for a charity Triathlon to make the annual VSO volunteer meeting happen in Nepal

Dear Friends and family

Each year VSO Nepal organizes a volunteer conference, during these three days we gather in a low cost accommodation to update share and plan with each other as well to check in with the ones that are posted in remote areas and look together with VSO how we can make sure we get to reach our goals of enabling people in Nepal to break the cycle of poverty. As a result of the international economic crisis, funding for VSO has been reduced and this event can no longer be funded from the budget.

Because we, the volunteers, believe it is crucial to support each other and get time to discuss our opportunities and challenges in working in improving education, health and governance in Nepal, we are determined to raise funds to make this event happen. For this reason, a few of our brave colleagues are going to participate in a triathlon on the 25th of February where they will have to swim 1,5 kilometers through a mountain lake (in February!), cycle for 20 kilometers through the Annapurna mountain range, and finish with a 10 kilometer uphill run (for more information, see: http://himalayanrush.com/).

We want to know if you are able to help us by sponsoring us to complete the triathlon and support your VSO Volunteer to attend this years volunteer conference. Please pledge the amount you would like to sponsor directly to louise.belinfante@gmail.com

Your donations will be tax deductible as they will be going to a registered charity.
Every little bit helps, we are hoping that among all of our VSO volunteer colleagues we will be able to raise about 3500-4000 Euro in total which will enable us to support our VSO colleagues and the partners they work with. Please let me know if you have any questions or want more details on the triathlon,

Thank you so much for your support

When does inclusion become exclusion?

(article for good governance weekly)

This week I visited schools in Banke to find out how they include disabled children in mainstream education.

One of the schools I visited was attempting to include deaf children into its school fairly unsuccessfully. There was one very dedicated female teacher who was obviously doing her best to teach a class of fourteen children. The teacher had only received one month of sign language training and was there for very limited by her capacity to teach using sign language. The other difficulty she encountered was that the children were of all different ages. The outcome is a class of fourteen children who are not receiving education to suit their needs and abilities.

For the teacher to receive adequate skills in sign language she needs to receive a further six months training, but who will teach her class whilst she receives this training. And how can the problem of teaching mixed ability children in the same class be overcome.

In another school blind children were being integrated more successfully. The blind pupils are taught in the same class room using Braille and they are able to live at the school during school time to make accessibility easier.

It feels like the attempt to include the deaf children into mainstream education is having the opposite effect excluding them from the education they are entitled to and socially excluding them from the other school pupils. But with limited resources what is the answer?

Deaf children could be assigned their own personal signer who could interpret during class time or each teacher could be taught signing to a high level, but with limited resources these solutions are not practical. The alternative could be a district school in which all deaf children can access education which fits their age and ability and in which teachers receive the correct sign language training. In one way this would promote education inclusion but potentially would socially exclude them from every day society and family life.

There is no simple answer, it’s a complex situation made worse by limited resources and agendas for social inclusion. What we must also remember is that these children are individuals with their own thoughts and feelings and what suits one child may not suit another, ideally it would be good to offer children a choice of how they would like to be educated to suit their individual needs.

New Years Resolutions

Well what a year it’s been, it probably couldn’t have been more different than any years that have passed before. This year, I think will be even more different to the last as I hurtle towards the end of my placement and chose what direction I want to got to next.

So here is what I want to do in 2012:

Find my true love
No one will be more surprised than I am to find out that I am ready to settle down and meet the man of my dreams. I have already lived a thousand lives and had more than my fair share of adventures, but now I feel like I am ready in my heart to share these adventures with someone. So this year I will have a look and see who I can find, there must be some out there who will make the perfect partner in crime and I am sure I will find him.

Switch to Nepali
One year in, it is time for me to switch from English to Nepali language and really push myself to feel comfortable with the lingo.

Start a new radio show
One thing I have really enjoyed over the last year is having my own radio show, it’s finished now but in the new year I will start something new!

Write short stories in devanagari माँ देवनागरी लेखन सिक्नुपर्छा
Devanagari is the funny looking shapes that people write in, in Nepal and India. I have learnt the very basics but now I want to step it up start using is regularly and what better way than writing short stories.

Ride by motorbike to another district
There really is only one way to travel around Nepal and that is by motorbike, so this year I want to learn how to ride a motorbike and then I will go on a road trip!


And that’s it really.

Happy New Year to everyone and don’t forget to set yourself some interesting resolutions for the new year, life is short and there are many adventures to be had, don’t sit too comfortably and watch it pass by.

Big love and peace
XXXX

Manners over board

Over the last two months, ever since my holiday I have not been feeling very well. I had a cold which turned into one of those coughs it’s really hard to get rid of and two months later it was joined with a terrible bout of tonsillitis.

In between illnesses I had a trip to Dailekh for my host organisations board meeting. Now I always have a love/hate relationship with field trips, because they are really uncomfortable and full on but at the same time I always learn a lot and get to see a new place. So I wasn’t exactly full of beans to start with and being crammed in jeep with over excited young people shouting didn’t really fit my mood, luckily I was able turn to Enya on my MP3 player for some respite, but it wasn’t really off to a good start. When we arrived we were paraded through the streets wearing flower garlands and we joked that this dilapidate looking building would be our hotel. As it turned out, it was our hotel.

The meeting went well and I was able to contribute to the meeting and learn about what some of the important issues are that the organisation are facing, though I did spend some of my time sitting under a blanket thinking about the next tea break. Still on the bright side one of my friends had moved from Nepalgunj to Dailekh for work and he invited me out for dinner with him and his boss one night. I was given a curfew of 8:30 pm for my night out from a very stern young board member, he had also asked me (and five other people) not to sit under the blanket during the meeting, but I refused to and after five minutes the other five people returned to the blanket, much to my delight. I never like to be told what to do and these days my polite English nature has been modified into a more direct approach, really you can’t afford to blunder around here doing things you don’t want to do just because your too polite to say no.

Following my delightful evening out I was cursed with post lunch diarrhoea the following day and missed out on a bit of sight seeing to one of the local wonders, fire coming out of the rocks! Luckily I had already seen this wonder in turkey, and once you have seen fire coming out of one rock you have seen them all, right??

Luckily every thing dried up in time for the journey home and I couldn’t wait to get home and have a hot shower and not talk Nepali for a few days.

Following a one hour facial some days later, which cost £3.50 I developed very swollen glands and a very sore throat, the dreaded curse of tonsillitis had arrived, complimenting my 6 week old chesty cough, after a few days of near death experience (massively exaggerated) I went to the local ENT doctor who gave me a shed load of pills and sent me home to rest for five days. Five days passed and back to doctors for check up and another batch of pills adding to a total of 12 days antibiotics.

Good news is that now I feel amazing in my post illness energy surge and even my chesty cough has nearly gone after I discovered the miracle of inhaling steam over a saucepan with a towel over my head.

During my time of illness I had time to revaluate every part of life from top to bottom and had no major epiphanies.

Trip to Lord Bhuddha’s birth place, canyon swing and cycle of torture

Well its been a very long time since I wrote a blog, which I suppose is a good sign because it means that I have been really busy and engrossed in my adventures to write. So what’s been going on?

Firstly I went to Lumbini which is apparently Bhuddha’s birth place and I stayed in this amazing nunnery. I wasn’t really sure what to expect, I had visions of sound of music with nuns in habits prancing around. Well I was completely wrong about that one, it was basically a Buddhist monastery with female monks with shaved heads gliding around with a very cute yet noisy dog.


The monastery itself was stunning it really took my breath away and was a great setting for our two day VSO meeting, on the upside aswell alcohol was banned so energy and participation was high, so I managed to redeem myself from the volunteer conference some months back when I had sat with a piece of bling material over my head after the Bollywood party. After the two day meeting I was rescued by my Nepali friends brother and taken to his nearby house where I quickly recovered with vast quantities of beer. The next day we went of to visit my Neplagunj friends’ birth place and no my friend is not Bhuddha.

After our borrowed motorbike broke down I had the opportunity to have a nosy round this beautiful house that took my fancy and had a chat with the owner a stunning woman. Motorbike resurrected we visited what remained of lord Bhuddha’s house (or something like that) not much to look at but there was a really beautiful pond.

The next day we visited lunbini development centre where monasteries from all over the world are situated, there must be about 20 different monasteries there all beautifully constructed with minute detail.

I returned to Nepalgunj for one day to rest and tidy myself up (basically I was fu***** after sleeping in a shared room with up to four Nepali friends and I had no clean clothes) before meeting my friend from Manchester in Kathmandu. I had planned a full two weeks detailed itinerary for my friends visit to Nepal and I had been very organised in doing so. Our first destination was ‘the last resort, this fancy smancy resort is nestled in the hills north of Kathmandu 15k from the Tibet border. It cost a bomb, but fortunately my dearest mother had kindly given me some holiday spending money, so I was able to over look the fact that two nights accommodation, transport travel, food and activities was the same amount as my monthly budget. And it was totally worth it, we did an amazing canyon swing with the most beautifully stunning back drop. The canyon swing basically consisted of being harnessed to 160ft rope and then jumping off a bridge into the canyon, free falling and then swinging, it was really really scary honestly but what a rush as I plunged through the air my red hair in tow! (the canyon is the top picture followed by the bridge)

After the canyon swing we scarpered to the top and set off mountain biking, when I had booked the mountain biking I hadn’t really enquired what exactly this entailed and was slightly perturbed to find out it was a 30 km round trip to the Tibet border, 15km up hill – shit!


After we reached half way with our Nepali guide it became obvious just what we had got our selves into, it was obvious from the start that my friends fitness levels were lacking somewhat and with that and a dodgy knee he had to turn back after half way, I on the other hand being the pig headed individual I am, continued the torture up the hill till I reached the Tibet border and then enjoyed the cruise all the way back, I have to say though it was as hard as running the half marathon I once embarked on!

What came first the policy or the funding proposal?

Article for local newspaper:


Whilst we all talk about good governance, how many of us are actually practising what we preach.
Does every person in your organisation know what your gender policy is and what it means to your everyday work or does it just sit on a shelf waiting to be pulled out for the next funding proposal?

Volunteers, who volunteer for Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO), are often faced with difficult decisions when it comes to supporting their assigned organisations. The role of the (VSO) volunteer is to act as an organisational development advisor, building the capacity of the organisation through skill sharing and support.

Many volunteers have experienced their organisation jumping through the obligatory hoops to obtain funding, for example to satisfy the funder you must have a gender policy, administration policy etc. Whilst both are valuable, they are not worth the paper they are written on if they have been copied and pasted from another organisation, they are meaningless.

I am hopeful though that the completion of policies to satisfy funders would be the starting point of the policy to come, that later the policy would be implemented in a meaningful way. The process of completing a funding proposal is definitely an effective way for organisations to highlight weaker areas for improvement.
Whilst the UK is full to the brim of policies on every small detail, at least in Nepal you have the opportunity to decide what is and isn’t relevant to support your organisation to grow and improve. What is written in your policies should give enough leeway to support creative thinking and provide people working in your organisation with a framework for action that helps them get on with the job they need to do.
So instead of your policies sitting on the shelf collecting dust, pull them out implement them and see if you can practise what you preach.

An extra extraordinary day

My extra extraordinary day started with a run at the stadium to a recording of Buddhist chants, I thought what a lovely way to start my day. At my office a friend of mine was celebrating his birthday, I asked him how he wanted to celebrate his birthday and he told me that he wanted to do two things; 1) to have a gathering in the office after work and 2) he wanted to give some clothing to a disabled boy. I questioned him further about the latter and he told me a really heart wrenching story. There is a severely disabled boy who is mentally and physically disabled, he had polio when he was young and consequently he could not use his legs. His parents chain him to the wall when they both go to work and he is left all alone chained all day like an animal. Many organisations have tried to help with the situation, by giving the parents money, but the situation has not improved. Organisations have also offered to give seed money for the parent to help start a small shop from home so they can look after their son, but the parents have turned the offer down.

I try to remain objective because there are always two sides to the story and I try to see if from the parent’s point of view, they have to earn money and there are no facilities for this boy to go to and no carers are provided here, this is not the UK where every social need is pampered to and some that are not needed are also provided. But when I join my friend on his visit to give two new sets of clothing really I am very shocked, he is conscious and lively and understands that we are bringing him gifts. He is wearing only a pair of dirty boxer shorts and a equally dirty t-shirts and he is filthy, we cloth him and give him some fruit and exchange words with the parents, I feel uncomfortable, upset and very foreign but I bite my lip and keep composed for now. The parents are willing to talk about setting up a shop.

We stopped off for some drinks on the way back to the office and my work friends asked me how I feel, I reply that I feel sad and start to cry, I am really so sad that I have no reservations about crying in front of my work friends.

We return to the office and to my surprise a group of girls from my office have already started cooking a delicious birthday feast and the music is set up in the meeting room, which co-incidentally used to be my dancing room as this is the first house I lived in, random. When all work friends are gathered a cake is brought out and candles blown. He cuts the cake and then proceeds to feed a small piece to each of his sisters and friends who in return feed him, what a nice idea. Of course there is dancing and then towards the end of the night it is time to open his presents.

And this is what he received; an ornament of a pink hand with a ring being placed on the wedding finger, several picture frames, a bunch of plastic flowers, several Hindu god figures relating to love and marriage and several other things which all related to marriage and love. It was like a pound shop super sweep (with all due respect, very kind and thoughtful). It seems his friends all had one thing on their mind they want him to get married.

I returned home feeling pretty hyperactive and thoughtful from the day, I logged onto facebook and got chatting to a friend who is a Radio Jockey, he was presenting a local Nepali radio song request show at the time and I requested one on line, but that was not possible so I told him I would call but with 10 minutes until the show ended he called me and before I knew it I was live on the radio talking Nepali – eek. Yes I made mistakes, plenty, but what a fun experience it was.

That night I only slept for four hours because a million different things were spinning through my head, but one thing that has not left me and never will is that poor boy chained in his house.