While disaster relief is not our mission, when emergencies arise in our project areas, we respond with additional support…
Nepal experienced a massive COVID surge in May, when new cases leapt from 79 per day to over 9,200. Rural village areas were especially hard hit, and small hospitals regularly had people gasping for air due to lack of oxygen supplies. For our birthdays (both in May), Nancy and Deana asked friends and family for emergency funding instead of gifts in order to send oxygen and PPE supplies to Nepal. We were overwhelmed by the generosity of the response and sent $7,600 worth of oxygen tanks, oxygen concentrators, and PPE supplies to hospitals in our village work areas.
Before the surge had even receded, the Melamchi River near our children’s home flooded higher than anyone alive could remember. It washed away miles of homes, farmland, & schools in June, including classrooms, toilet, and lunch pavilion at Terse School, which we have helped to build and support over the last 16 years. CLN sent immediate relief funds to create a retaining wall before more classrooms could wash away.
Our Program Director Neel Thakuri worked day and night managing a crew to create and place stone-filled cages in the rushing river until they had a protective wall for the Terse school. When the river flooded AGAIN in August, causing further damage up and down the area, our immediate response over the prior weeks prevented any further loss at the school. This has been particularly important because other schools washed away entirely in the second flood, and new students are enrolling at the remaining few schools like Terse. We then helped to rapidly build 7 new classrooms atop one of the existing school buildings in order to accommodate all the children and ensure they stay in school and have a place to study.
