The School

Yak Farming Project

In 1997, we introduced 30 yaks to the Khopra region below Annapurna and Nilgiri Himalayas. This project was a joint-venture of Himanchal High School and Paudwar High School. The program has been very successful, as there are 125 Yaks now that are producing a good source of income for the schools.

We are selling yak meat as well as blood from live Yaks as medicine; people come to drink fresh blood from live Yaks two times a year in our Yak farm. Our long term goal is to expand the herd to 200 and to make different items such as sweaters, carpet, blankets from Yak wool for sale.

Yak/Cow Cross-breeding Project

In 2003, we also started a cross-breeding project withYaks and local cows in Pun Hill area in order to produce a breed called Jhopa. This breed gives more milk and can be tamed easily for carrying loads and plowing fields. For this project, we have hired a local man to look after twenty cows and two yaks. Our plan is to produce Yak cheese and sell the Jhopas to the villagers to raise additional income. The cross-breeding project has been successful. After a long try, we have gotten success to produce 10 cross-breeds by May 2008. Three of those cross-breeds have already started working as pack animals.

Handmade Paper Making Project

Since 2001, we have been selling raw materials for making handmade paper to a Japanese firm. We processed the bark of a locally grown plant called "Argeli" and sold it to the Japanese firm. This project created jobs for some villagers for about three months. In 2004, we started making handmade paper by ourselves from another locally grown plant called "Lokta".

Paper made in the village

Village women making paper

In 2007, we exported about 90 kilogram of Argeli paper to Greece and in 2008 about 120 kilogram. We are also making notebooks from Lokta paper and selling them through our volunteers. In 2008, we are planning to export about 500 notbooks made by the village women. The paper making project is bringing some jobs and income for the villagers. Jane Sabin-Davis, a volunteer from Oregan USA, is helping us to improve the quality of the paper and paper product. She i alsos trying to find the market for it in the international market. Jane is a Board Member of Himanchal Education Foundation.

Camping Ground and Tourist Lodge Project

We built our first camping ground in Nangi village for tourists in 1996, which produced some income for the school. After that, we built two more camping grounds in Khopra as a joint venture project with Paudwar High School. After the restoration of peace in Nepal, these camping grounds are producing some income for the village.

Khopra Lodge and Dhaulagiri Peak

Inside View of Khopra Lodge (during construction period)

With Peregrene Adventure of Australia, Paudwar High School, and Himanchal Higher Secondary School as business partners, we have built a tourist lodge in Khopra. It has 10 bedrooms. The construction work was completed in May, 2008. We are working hard to bring many tourists from coming years.

Fishery, Bee-keeping, Rabbit and Duck Raising Projects

We are raising rabbits, and ducks on a small scale to make money for the school. Right now there are 45 rabbits, and 60 ducks. We sell them for meat to the villagers.

We had built a small pond in the school in 2000 and introduced different kinds of fish to find how well the fish could grow. Some varieties, such as silver carps, common carps and grass carps, are doing very well. The school has built five small fish ponds in the village. Now the pond has become a hatchery and we are distributing fingerlings to the villagers.

Huguenin Rallapalli Foundation of California, USA had provided support to build the fish ponds, duck and rabbit houses. Our plan is to build more ponds in the village because we have found that fish farming can be a good source of income for the school. It is also interesting to know that there are no fish in the mountain streams. Because of high waterfalls fish can't come to the mountain streams from the nearest river. Therefore villagers are very excited to raise fish by building small ponds in their own lands.

Health Training Program

Our school has also established a community clinic in the school. There are two health workers working in the clinic - Lila Purja and Rupa Khoraja. They have taken two-years training on basic health care. Moreover, we also get medical doctors and nurses from abroad frequently in the village as volunteers.

Whenever we get foreign doctors, we organize health training program in the village by bringing health workers from other villages as well. Dr. Debra Stoner from Pennsylvania, USA is volunteering to organize health education program for village health workers. She has come to Nangi three times until now and is a Board Member of Himanchal Education Foundation.

We also have sent Chitrabahadur Pun of nangi vilage for three-year dental training course in Kathmandu Dental School run by Public Health Concern Trust. He will finish his training at the end of 2008 and will come to Nangi village to provide dental services for the villagers. For that we will build a dental clinic in hte school.

Composting Toilets

One of the programs that we have started for health and sanitation is to build composting toilet in the school. The idea originally came from Dr. Debra Stoner, and Tammy Thomson ( a volunteer from Canada). We have built three composting toilets until now in Nangi school - one for the boys in the hostel, the second for the girls in the hostel and the third is for the students coming to school during the day time.

One of the goals of building composting toilet in the school is to teach the villagers to about the benefits of composting toilet and encourage them to build one in their house. The villagers are very excited to see how useful the composting toilets can be to make compost for their fields.