Tuesday 25 August 2009

School mosaics

During my holiday on the Scilly Isles during July I couldn't help but notice the little school on the island of Tresco. The outside wall was covered with mosaic, and although the mosaic work wasn't technically so well executed it was very sweet indeed. The children had clearly had a lot of fun going hands on with the piece and embedding in the mosaic ceramic inserts that depicted various aspects of island life.

The concept is actually not so remarkable as mosaics are increasingly popular in schools in the UK. It got me thinking today about how we could be innovative in developing education and school development projects here in Nepal. I can see the potential for school-based fundraising in the UK (which is lucrative) being used to support named schools in Nepal. And a share of the funds raised could be dedicated towards making a mosaic at the schools which would not only give work to some of the Trust's beneficiaries but also provide an eyecatching feature at what would probably be otherwise very grim schools.

I am now in contact with a mosaic artist in the UK who has good links with a large number of UK schools and is willing to help. Nepal will be a more colourful place in future and some of its poorest children a little better educated.

Monday 24 August 2009

ITC

When I first came to live in Nepal almost five years ago I attended a month long language course at the rather grandly named Intercultural Training and Research Institute in Thamel, the tourist district of Kathmandu. In spite of its two staff members it was a great course and my teacher, Parbati, was brilliant. The problem was that I forgot all my Nepali within a week or two of starting work here as English is the lingua franca within the development sector.

Today I returned to ITC for the first time since then and once again Parbati is my teacher. From now on I am determined to have a two hour session at lunchtime every other day until I have a working knowledge of the language. Hmmmm. Today, at my request, we started with the Nepali alphabet which consists of 11 vowels and 36 consonants. At the end of class I took a picture of Parbati's whiteboard. This in on the right.

Wish me luck.