Two recent articles about Cora Edmonds and Namaste Children's Fund!

Years later, photographer revisits the Nepalese boy who inspired a gallery
2010, Vol 29 No 7 | February 13 - February 19
By Shelley Seale
For Northwest Asian Weekly

WS woman raises art awareness, and Ukrainian, Nepalese, and American kids
March 2, 2010
By Steve Shay
For West Seattle Herald

Season’s Greetings and a great big Thank YOU to everyone who helped us triple our fundraising goal for 2009. All donations large and small are sent directly to Nepal and no funds are diverted for overhead costs. We deeply appreciate your support.

Your generosity accomplished so much in 2009!

Full scholarships and boarding at HVP-Dang in southern Nepal for two children from Thehe village, Gyeni and Amrita Bohara, as well as scholarships for an additional 50 impoverished children from the local Dang area to attend HVP.

Furniture, teaching aids, microscopes and other much needed supplies for the small local school in Thehe village. The teachers from the Thehe school are very grateful for the assistance.

The founding of the Simikot Girl's Hostel, a boarding facility for 25 girls from Thehe that allows them access to improved schooling in Simikot (a five hour walk from their home in Thehe). The hostel provides boarding, school uniforms, nutritious meals, and leadership experiences. The hostel provides paid employment for four Thehe villagers who assist with the farming, cooking, maintenance, and overseeing the girls.

A large-scale sanitation project in Thehe Village: the building of 2 toilet buildings and washing stations. The project is funded by NCF, but is largely built by Thehe villagers themselves and provides vocational training for the participants in the project. Currently the buildings have been completed. The project will be the first bio gas system in the region and will work as a pilot scheme for other villages to follow. NCF's hope is to model an alternative to the extensive use of firewood for cooking and heating, which is contributing to heavy deforestation in the Himalayan region. The gathering of firewood is a monumental task for the people of Thehe.

In addition to the Thehe leadership council (named the Thehe Multipurpose Cooperative), which was formed by influential villagers to consult with NCF on how to improve the village, our full-time Thehe representative Suresh Bohara has helped found two sister organizations: Women's Welfare & Awareness Society (for 18-30 year old women) and the Thehe Sporting Club (for 18-30 years old men). These organizations will help involve more of the younger generation of Thehe to actively participate in the improvement of their home and their lives.

The hiring of a full-time teacher and supplies for the nuns in the Gargen Chyoling Nunnery in the remote Mustang area.

Thank you and Namaste!

Chimey Sherpa, general manager of NCF operations in Nepal, sent in this new photo of the girls attending the Simikot school! They are dressed for winter, which is very harsh in the mountainous Humla region.

A GREAT way to support these girls is to attend Venice is Sinking, a masquerade ball here in Seattle that will benefit NCF and Crooked Trails. The party will feature food, wine, music, cabaret and circus performers, and much, much more! The ball will be held in the beautiful Georgetown ballroom. NCF receives a portion of all ticket proceeds! Tickets are $50, $65 at the door. Get them here!

Save the date for Venice is Sinking on February 20, 2010! Party with a purpose and help NCF!

When NCF was visiting Thehe in April 2009, a teenaged girl approached the group and shyly handed over a letter before running away. Paper and pencil are extremely scarce in Thehe village, but even more impressive was the young lady's initiative in writing a letter (in English) to NCF. In the letter, Pancala Sunar described her life circumstances. She wrote of being the eldest daughter in an extremely poor family in Thehe, a family of the lowest caste, and unable to attend further schooling than is currently available in Thehe because her parents could not afford to send her. She asked NCF for help and a chance to further her education.

Only a few months later, the NCF boarding home in Simikot opened, giving 25 students from Thehe full scholarships and board to attend the larger and more well-appointed school in Simikot. Pancala is among the first 25 girls chosen to attend. NCF is very proud to be able to support Pancala and the other students from Thehe in their education. Donate now to support the Simikot Boarding Home!

Cora Edmonds' photography from Nepal and Tibet is currently on display at Seattle's Everest Kitchen. In addition to serving authentic flavors of Tibet, Nepal, and India, the Everest Kitchen has a mission to promote healthy food as medicine to soothe your mind, body and soul. (14561 Bothell Way NE, Shoreline/Seattle, WA 98155)

Part of the proceeds of all Cora Edmonds' photography are donated to Namaste Children's Fund! View more of her artwork here.

One of the most exciting NCF developments this year has been the founding of the Simikot boarding facility. This small hostel in the village of Simikot currently boards 25 girls from Thehe village (about five hours from Simikot) so they can attend school. NCF has chosen to first focus on young girls in the village, but hopes to expand the program in the near future. The scholarship students were chosen by the village development committee, with an equal number of girls from each district in Thehe village.

The first 25 students to attend the Simikot school, 

 
The Simikot boarding home, set up by NCF, where the girls live
while attending school (vegetable garden in front).

 
Parents of the Simikot Boarding Students gather for a meeting

The Simikot boarding facility allows NCF to offer students in Thehe Village an improved education at a lower cost than sending them outside the region, giving more students the opportunity to attend school. Read our latest article on developments in Thehe Village to learn more about the Simikot boarding facility!

SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITY: Sponsor a Thehe girl’s education! $350 per year pays for one girl to live and go to school in Simikot. Your support would be greatly appreciated!

Click here to sponsor a girl to attend school!

There are 450 to 500 families living in Thehe Village. Each family has multiple children and several generations living within each household. There are no roads and very limited services. Thehe became the focus of NCF work in Nepal due to our personal connection with Gyeni Bohara (the Namaste Story), but this connection has blossomed since 2007 to a real relationship with the citizens of the village. A great achievement was meeting Suresh Bohara, the first Thehe citizen to get his Master’s degree in Kathmandu. Suresh has moved back to Thehe so he can dedicate himself to improving his hometown and has proved to be a valuable link between NCF and the community.

Click below to read the full article!

The branch of Hindu Vidyapeeth school that NCF primarily works with is situated near Dang in the lowland Terai area of Nepal. NCF sponsors two children (Gyeni and Amrita) from Thehe who are staying in the Children’s Peace Home boarding facility and attending the school. We also support 58 children from the surrounding area to attend this school. Most of these children are from single parent homes or have no parents and are living with extended families. In addition to the scholarships, NCF funds have helped complete a new library building at the Children’s Peace Home so boarding students have a place to study and read during their time away from school.

 
Left: Amrita and Children's Peace Home boarding students,
Right: The staff and boarders at Children's Peace Home

 
The new Peace Home Library, completed with NCF funds

The school has volunteers (mainly from England) who help tutor the children. There are eight students coming this summer from Oxford, Durham and Cambridge to spend the summer staying at the boarding school and teaching the kids. This is a wonderful influence on all the students and helps their studies immensely. Normally they would have 10-12 volunteers each year, but the world recession is affecting the school and they are very grateful for any support we can offer them to help with teacher salaries, supplies and maintenance of the facilities. To learn more about volunteering at HVP, visit Live-Nepal.

This article appeared in the Summer 2009 NCF Newsletter. To receive our newsletters and updates, join our mailing list!

Gargen Chyoling nunnery is about 380 years old and is based in the Mustang region of Nepal. This group belongs to the Drukpa Kargya sect of Vajrayana (Tibetan Buddhism). There are 25 of the younger nuns living in a small nunnery on the outskirts of Kathmandu and Chimey has been teaching them English for the past decade. With Chimey now fully involved with NCF projects, they need another teacher to help them with math, health sciences and to learn basic English. We have appointed a woman from Kathmandu to fill this role and she will live in the nunnery. We have also purchased a computer and school supplies to support instruction.

This article was first published in the Summer 2009 NCF Newsletter. To receive our newsletter, join our mailing list!

Namaste Children's Fund is honored to be named one of the beneficiaries of The Giving Ring, a project by Stone Lily!

The Giving Ring is handcrafted by fair trade artisans in Nepal and sold through Stone Lily. When you buy The Giving Ring or The Giving Ring pendant, all net profits support one of ten beneficiaries from countries around the world. You choose which organization you wish to assist. Stone Lily partners with women and children all over the planet as they create better lives for themselves, which now includes Namaste Children's Fund!

"Our collective capacity to promote human dignity and well-being all over the planet is unstoppable."

Twenty years ago, Canadian singer/songwriter Bruce Cockburn visited the Humla region of Nepal with a non-profit Canadian group. The Humla region is the remote Northwestern district of Nepal where NCF focuses many of our educational projects. In 2008, Bruce and USC Canada returned to Humla and, with film maker Robert Lang, created a fascinating documentary "Return to Nepal."

View clips from the documentary here! From the breathtaking views of the Himalayan mountains to the long waits at the Surkhet airport, "Return to Nepal" is a wonderful virtual trip through this remote region.

If you missed Cora Edmonds' interview on KUOW, you can listen to it here on the KUOW website. Reporter Jeremy Richards interviews Cora about the Namaste Story, the Namaste circle of communities and individuals, and the Namaste Children's Fund.

Namaste Reunited closes Saturday, May 2, but Cora Edmonds' striking images will still be available at ArtXchange Gallery. Thanks to coverage by Seattle's KUOW public radio station, the Seattle Times, and great word-of-mouth buzz, the Namaste circle expanded to include many new friends, and we raised funds to benefit many new children in Nepal through generous donations and 15% of the proceeds from Cora's photography.

Click below to check out more photos from Namaste Reunited events!

The highly anticipated opening of Namaste Reunited brought many friends and fans to ArtXchange Gallery on March 5. Buzz was generated by a wonderful writeup by Marian Liu in the Seattle Times and many new faces came to the gallery to learn about the Namaste Story and Namaste Children's Fund. Namaste Reunited is Cora Edmonds' first new body of work to be exhibited since her popular Himalayan Faces series in 2001.

The main portion of the exhibition exhibits Cora's photographic work from Nepal. Many viewers have heard the story behind her Namaste photograph and the exhibition picks the Namaste story up in 2007, when Cora and Phil Crean returned to Nepal to search for the young boy in the photograph. The story unfolds through a mixture of documentary photography, stunning art images, and personal photographs from the journey.

Following the successful reunion between Cora and the Namaste Boy, Gyeni Bohara, the exhibition presents sections detailing the work of Namaste Children's Fund. NCF, founded by Cora and Phil in 2008, serves Gyeni's home village of Thehe as well as other non-profit projects in Nepal. Many exciting projects are already well underway, and Namaste Reunited presents this work to the public through photographs, text, and multimedia. New photographs sent by NCF directors in Nepal show the progress being made on these exciting projects!

The final documentary portion of the exhibition follows Gyeni's first visit back to Thehe since leaving to attend boarding school. Cora and Phil accompanied the young boy in fall 2008, documenting the emotions and pride of Gyeni's family and Thehe citizens as they welcomed Gyeni back to his home. 

Also on display are stunning fine art photographs from Cora's travels around the world, from Nepal to Thailand, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Egypt, and more. View the entire exhibition online here!

15% of the proceeds from all Cora Edmonds' photography is donated to the Namaste Children's Fund! Her artwork can be purchased through ArtXchange Gallery in Seattle, WA.