News from Himanchal High School and Nangi Village, Nepal Himanchal High School received $6,000 from Huguenin Rallapalli Foundation in San Francisco to support a health worker equivalent to Physician Assistant for Nangi Health Clinic. We hired Rabin Adhikari as Physician Assistant in February of this year. We have been unable to hire an MD yet. At present there are three staff at the clinic – Rabin Adhikari (paramedic), Saroj KC (Lab technician) and Lila Pun (Nurse). The new school year started April 20. Students enrolled in a total of 108 (58 boys and 50 girls). This year 20 students in...

HIMANCHAL EDUCATION FOUNDATION JULY 2022 NEWSLETTER The medical clinic that HEF helped initiate under Dr. Debra Stoner’s guidance in 1998, is a community based clinic and thus not government supported. The clinic was expanded 2 years ago with a $11,000 grant from the Huguenin Rallapalli Foundation in California. It has been extremely difficult to get doctors to stay more than 3-4 months at the clinic. They do not care for the rural setting and seek opportunities that pay more. Current salary is $850/mon. Mahabir suggested if funds could be secured they would be able to hire a general practitioner for...

The NIC – National Innovation Center,  located inside the Tribhuvan University, the largest and the oldest University in Kathmandu Nepal, is a very interesting place. The University area was so huge that it took me a while following all the NIC signs eventually leading me to the center. I am very grateful for the opportunity I had visiting the center and receiving a tour from Mahabir. I found the center to be very different from the traditional innovation centers one would imagine. There were not many hard rules one had to follow while in there, nor I saw a definite...

KATHMANDU, Feb 2022. The cabinet of the Gandaki Province Government elected to award Dr. Mahabir Pun, Chairperson of the National Innovation Center, with ‘Gandaki Ratna Award’ for his contribution to the development of science and technology in Nepal. The award is the largest and most important in the province. The award was presented to Dr. Pun during a special function on the occasion of the fourth anniversary of the provincial government, said Kumar Khadka, Spokesperson of Gandaki Province government. Pun has contributed immensely for the expansion of wireless internet service in rural areas of the country. Source: National News Agency...

It has been 18 months since the lockdown was imposed on March 24, 2020 in Nepal. Therefore, everything is moving very slowly as in the rest of the world. I would like to share some news and updates of the activities during this period in Nangi village and surroundings. Covid-19 and Nangi village: Nangi and surrounding villages were not affected much by Covid-19 because there were travel restriction for travel from one village to another. Most of the villagers worked on the farms and did not go outside the villages. Teaching during the pandemic: All the schools were closed in...

I would like to share some updates of the activities from Nangi village, Nepal. Because of the Covid-19 pandemic we have not been able to do as much as we wanted to do. Nearly all the schools in the cities and mountains of Nepal were closed by the government March 24, 2020. However, we opened the Himanchal High School from July 1 and started teaching because there were no Covid cases in the whole region. One teacher did get infected with Covid because he travelled out of town for some work but has totally recovered. Nangi received support from the...

Dr. Mahabir Pun continues to set the standard as he makes another personal gift for the people of Nepal. http://www.thewalkeronline.com/2017/05/30/mahabir-pun-to-sell-his-magsaysay-award/

Here is the number of trekkers from September to December 2016 as reported by Chitra Pun, Field Advisor. 565 trekkers from the USA, UK, German, Canada, Australia, Austria, India, Japan, Belgium, Denmark, Israel, Holland, Finland, and Korea participated in varied treks offered by the Nepal Community Trek. The treks take visitors off the beaten tracks of overcrowded tourist and mountaineering trails and into the heart of the Nepali people. Visit rural villages, gaze on the Annapurna mountain range and experience home cottage industries such as papermaking first hand. Experience a home stay or snuggle up in a cozy mountain lodge. Enjoy...

Jeannine from The School Inside describes their latest project with the teachers from Nangi at Himanchal Higher Education School. “It’s an old idea that still has much meaning: pen pals. Although I and other volunteer English teachers take maximum advantage of the internet to teach English to people all over the world (via Skype), the one thing the internet can’t change is time zones. One of the biggest challenges we face in serving more students is finding teachers who aren’t in bed when the students are free for lessons! That’s when we got the idea of e-mail writing lessons. Right...

Republished with permission from The School Inside website: http://www.interesteng.org ONE week I prepared a lesson based around the theme of food.  Of course, I used a lot of things from my kitchen. I held an egg up, for example, and asked the kids what it was. Immediately they shouted out, “It’s an egg!” I praised them and we talked about eggs, where they come from and, yes, they have chickens in Nangi. I asked if they liked eggs and they enthusiastically told me “Yes, I do!” Then the Skype connection cut off.  So I waited patiently for them to call me back. When...