day in Kathmandu and I was pleased to see upon arrival at the refuge that Shailaja, typically, was not lazing in the sun. Instead she had put the sun to work for her with two solar ovens up and running, baking bread for the children's lunch. And very good it was too. We are working towards using the larger, trailer mounted, solar oven commercially as it bakes more bread than even our voracious children can eat. That could provide a handy income to the local organisation, albeit a modest one. 
Next week will see the start of an external evaluation of our work and yesterday I was revisiting a previous evaluation from 2005 which needs to be taken into consideration 
by a different evaluator, Jason Hoke, who will be conducting a more in-depth review. The evaluator at that time was very naive, surprisingly so since he'd lived for 20 years in Nepal and spoke the language, taking pretty well everything that the (then) local staff said to him at face value. Much of his report still grates with me. But one particularly unfair comment that was made was that by teaching children independent living and how to fend for themselves we were erroneously bringing them up in a Western way. In Nepali culture there is a great deal of interdependence within the family and the community. These links are reinforced through religious practice and festivals like the ones we've just had, Dashain and Tihar, when parent/child and sibling/sibling relationships are re-affirmed. Undoubtedly these practices can add a great deal of strength to family life, an inherent strength that we could indeed learn from in the West.
by a different evaluator, Jason Hoke, who will be conducting a more in-depth review. The evaluator at that time was very naive, surprisingly so since he'd lived for 20 years in Nepal and spoke the language, taking pretty well everything that the (then) local staff said to him at face value. Much of his report still grates with me. But one particularly unfair comment that was made was that by teaching children independent living and how to fend for themselves we were erroneously bringing them up in a Western way. In Nepali culture there is a great deal of interdependence within the family and the community. These links are reinforced through religious practice and festivals like the ones we've just had, Dashain and Tihar, when parent/child and sibling/sibling relationships are re-affirmed. Undoubtedly these practices can add a great deal of strength to family life, an inherent strength that we could indeed learn from in the West.However that which can lead to intrinsic strength can also foster the weakness of dependence. And what happens when these social and family bonds fail and children end up sent to prison because there is no one prepared to bear the stigma of caring for the children of prisoners (even if they are relatives) or when children get sold and are trafficked into modern day slavery in the Indian circuses? Usually this represents an irretrievable breakdown of those bonds as families dissolve around the trafficking victims. The only answer surely is to "empower" (a grossly overused word within the development sector) the survivors and prepare children and young people to face the adult life in a tough country without being solely reliant upon support that may well be founded upon feet of clay.
