The School

Start Vocational Education Program for Villagers

This is the fact that in many villages of Nepal, there are very few young and strong men. Most of them are working away from the villages in the cities or in other countries; today there are thousands of Nepalese working in Gulf countries, Malaysia, Korea, Hong Kong, and India. Most of them do manual labor abroad because they did not get any vocational training while they were in the village. In Nangi, for example, there are 40 young people working in Malaysia and the Gulf countries, which in the main source of cash income for the villagers.

Keeping this fact in mind we are trying hard to start some vocational training programs in the village to teach some good paying skills to the young people. However, we have not been able to start several programs formally because of the lack of resources. Some of the progrmas that we have started so far in the village are sewing, carpentary, knitting, electrical wiring, handicraft making and cook training etc.

Start Distance Teaching Program Through Wi-Fi System

It is very difficult to find qualified teachers to work in the rural schools of Nepal. There is always a shortage of English, science, and math teachers in the high schools in the villages. We are working on to find ways to start live distance teaching program from one school to several other high schools in the region. Right now we are testing the Wi-Fi network system for tele-teaching that we have set up in ten high schools. We are also working on developing web-based educational materials for the students and teachers. We are testing the interactive educational contents developed by Open Learning Exchange Nepal based on the school textbooks. We have put the materials develoed by olenepal.org in the Intranet and have made them accessible for the students and teachers.

Expand the Wireless Network in Wider Areas of Nepal

We want to expand wireless network all over Nepal. We are working now in different parts of Nepal to help build wireless network for e-education, e-health, communication, and local e-commerce purpose. Our long term goal is to start remittance services in the villages so that villagers working abroad can send money to their families easily. For more information about the wireless networking project and its progress, please visit our site at http://www.nepalwireless.net. For information about how the villagers are using the intranet locally, please visit our internal homepage at http://www.nepalwireless.com.np.

Find Business Partners to Build Village Resorts for Tourists

Not a single penny had come to our village from tourists before we built the first camping ground in our village. We have found that there is significant potential of making money from the tourists to support the school and other development projects, since our area (in Annapurna region) is considered one of the most beautiful country sites in Nepal. We are currently trying to find business partners to establish village resorts, and hope to provide training to some people from the village for starting such businesses.

As we have envisioned, the main attraction of these “village resorts” will be that they are off the main trekking trail and provide stunning views of the Himalayas. Moreover, these villages will provide a taste of being in a very different community, culturally and geographically. Such a resort will provide a very peaceful environment for foreign travelers, who are tired of the noisy and rushing lives in the western world. In addition, the resort will introduce tourists to the rural life style and food. Both tourists and villagers will get an opportunity to share their ideas and learn from each other in these village resorts.

One thing that will be seriously considered before starting resorts the impact they may have on the natural environment and the culture of local people. We hope to develop the program in such a way that it will have minimal negative effects on the cultural heritage and the young generation of this area. This resort program will, in fact, help tourists have a deeper understanding of rural life, as well as help to generate some income to make the rural development programs self-sustaining.

Construct hostel buildings for the students

The students of grade nine, ten, eleven and twelve live in hostels inside the school compound. The hostels are actually small huts made from wooden boards, and poles with bamboo matresses as the roof. Two students live in one hut. The hut has kitchen, sleeping beds and reading table. Students go home during the weekend and bring food to eat. They cook their food by themselves. Now we have built 90 huts for accomodating the students.

Kitchen inside a student hut

Huts where students live

Although these huts are just good enough for the students for shelter, they are not hygenically good for living and studying. Therefore one of our long term goals is to build better dormitories for the students. Until we find resources to build better dormitories the students will be using the huts as the place to live and study.

Establish a Four-Year College and Some Vocational Institutes by 2015 AD

We see that almost all of the colleges and universities are established in big cities, and many people who have visited our area do not believe that it is possible to build self-supportive schools and colleges in this region. The main point of their reasoning is the remoteness of the area, which we believe is a short-sighted rationale.

Our long term goal is to expand the high school in Nangi to a four-year college by 2015 AD. We believe that education is the key to developments, if carried out in the right way. The college that we hope to build will be developed by mountain people, owned by the mountain people and run by the mountain people. Moreover, it will be based in the mountains.

More than being a place to study formal subjects, the college will actually be the "brain house" for all the development programs in the village. It will be a research institute for educational and rural development, a training institute for rural school teachers, a vocational training institute for rural people and a professional training center for development workers. People who are interested in working for rural and community development with any political or religious belief or any other background will be welcomed.