Students rise to challenge in Nepal

OFFERING FUNDS: Lizzy Mittiga presents donations to the Umbrella Foundation.

CARRYING CLOTHES: Students haul loads of clothes to Shanti Stupa School.

SCHOOL PAINTING: Kristin students get stuck into painting Shanti Stupa School.

ANNAPURNA BASE: Kristin students at the trail base camp in Nepal.

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Kristin School in Albany welcomed home 28 senior students and three teachers who had been in Nepal for 18 days.

The year 11 and 12 students had been performing community service projects on the Annapurna trail, in Pokhara and the Kathmandu region since April 14.

The school has a progressive educational philosophy which allows students to interact with the world and experience many activities like the Nepal trip.

Geography teacher Ann Mair spent months planning the adventure, which aimed to fulfil every participant.

Ms Mair lined up three major projects for students which would leave a positive mark on the communities they visited.

The first was environmentally focused.

The students were to clear the Annapurna trail of rubbish as they trekked, and at their evening stops.

Previously, trail clearing has always been concentrated in the Everest region.

Because of the collapse of the Annapurna Conservation Committee and National Park regulations during years of political turmoil in Nepal, there has been renewed deforestation and pollution caused by the independent trekkers who have been their primary tourists.

The rubbish they collected was sorted and disposed of in new bins.

The Kristin students were responsible for clearing many kilograms of rubbish from this trail.

"By making a clean- up part of the agenda and mission statement of our trekking group we not only were able to clean up a primary trekking trail and leave it in better shape than we found it, but we also set an excellent example for other trekking groups to follow," says student Richard Carran.

The next task was at a small school near Shanti Stupa in the foothills beside Pokhara.

Once again, because of the virtual collapse of the government in past years, what little the Education Department was doing for small village schools had declined to virtually nothing.

The Kristin students visited the elementary school to find it operated with a very basic structure, staff and facilities.

"Other groups have recently visited it and have pledged to do what they can when they return next year," Ms Mair says.

"An international collaboration to get the facilities repaired, upgraded and furnished as soon as possible with a combined effort is the objective. So we spent a whole day painting the inside and outside of the school.

"We also had money to donate from a Kristin mufti day and a laptop which we gave them," she says.

The final project on the trip was to work with an organisation in Kathmandu called the Umbrella Foundation.

The foundation operates seven orphanages in Kathmandu where 278 children enjoy modern housing and 24-hour supervision by qualified staff.

The orphanages seek to relieve the impact of poverty and war on children, rescuing them from destitution and giving them an education, food, clothes and a home.

The Kristin students visited one of the orphanages with money, clothes, including a set of school uniforms from one of the Kristin parents, and other gifts.

They spent the day playing, reading and talking to the children.

The following day the foundation rescued 40 children from the remote Rasuwa Langtang district, so they were especially grateful.

"On behalf of all the children, thank you from the bottom of my heart," Umbrella Foundation director Jacky Buk said in Nepal.

"It was the most amazing trip," says student Jack Carew.

"We experienced a wide range of weather and quite challenging trekking. We really
enjoyed meeting and being with the Nepali people."