Up To Date News from Nepal

8/17/2013 - Over the past several years since this Blog site was opened, numerous new small start-up projects have been funded by the Dr. Dick Harding Charity Fund for Nepal.  I have been delinquent in keeping up with reporting about them.  This, therefore, is an update on some of the projects.

Because of rapid growth and poor infrastructure and stagnation in the political turmoil and uncertainty in Nepal, in the past year or two there has been an increasingly inadequate electricity for the Kathmandu Valley metropolitan area. Several small Christian NGOs have provided income-generating candle-making training and provision of necessary equipment to groups of very poor village people to meet the increasing need for LIGHT when there is no electricity in the city.

We continue to sponsor dozens of orphans and very poor dalit children and other low caste groups with primary school scholarships and even scholarships for further education to a few promising students. Recently, a Christian widow took in three orphans, all from different ethnic groups.  Having very little funds herself, we have been sponsoring these children's education through one of our Christian NGOs.

A wonderful project, which has been planned with a small Christian community for several years has finally got off the ground and is running well.  It is a Community Health Center located in a remote very poor mountainous area called Bhaltar.  A great deal of planning and organization, led by a small local church who encouraged and involved much of the community, went into the planning.  For many years I have been dreaming that local churches might do just this kind of thing.  So we are very excited about this model and so far it is functioning very well.

Another exciting new project has been an interest in homes for the elderly in the Kathmandu Valley.  The past year a group of Christian nurses and social workers, one a board member and one the wife of our new chairperson, have been providing training programs for the workers of a number of poorly run homes in the valley.  The future hope is to build a Christian model facility.  The board member mentioned has donated a small property on which to build such a facility.  Of course this will be a much larger project than usual, but we will seek funds from several sources and trust God for guidance.

Tomorrow the fund's board of trustees will meet in Kathmandu to review already funded projects and to consider possible new ones for the coming year.  The projects I have mentioned above are varied but exciting and have so far been very successful, have met the needs of the poor, and have helped to bring more justice to Nepal.  The needs are endless but it is also very important to carefully evaluate all proposed projects, and the trustees are men and women of great experience, wisdom, and character as well as being Christian leaders who are truly working for the needs of the poor, widows, children, marginalized, and powerless in the politically unstable and volatile country of Nepal.

If any of this excites you and you are tired of sending checks to USA charities who hound you in the mail and on the phone and where the administrative overhead eats up 25-30% of funds received and are used in ways you are really not sure about - instead send donations of any size to Dr. Dick Harding Charity Fund to Nepal
1575 John Knox Drive Apt D-201, Colfax, NC 27235.  Donations are tax deductible; 99+% will be used for projects in Nepal; you will receive an immediate letter in response; and I will make more effort into updating what is going on in this Blog Page.  I will also arrange to include some pictures.
Namaste! and thank you for your interest and your help.

Dr. Dick Harding
Retired Medical Missionary to Nepal 1970-2002