Holi in Bhairahawa

In my post of 9th March I wrote how the Hindu festival of Holi was my least favourite of the year with anyone being liable to find themselves sprayed by revellers with water or with coloured dye, whether they like it or not. A picture I received today indicates that our UK volunteers in Bhairhawa seemed to enter into the spirit of it with more enthusiasm than I could muster.

Colour at The White House

The Esther Benjamins Trust's first children's refuge, the so called "White House", was set up in Bhairahawa southwest Nepal in 2000. It is currently providing a temporary home for 30 schoolgoing children. Most are children of prisoners but there are also some former street children and conflict affected children in their number. Over the last couple of months the refuge has received the support of eight gap year students. Volunteer photographer Jonny Cochrane visited the refuge last month and I have just uploaded his striking images to Flickr.

Childcare at the refuge costs in total £45 per month and we need sponsors to help us meet this cost. Sponsorship can be at three levels; £25 per month to cover general care costs, £15 per month for educational costs or £5 per month as a recreational sponsorship. Let me know if you can help.

How to defuse a crisis in Nepal

This week The Kathmandu Post published a front page article explaining how over the past year a number of commissions had been appointed to investigate pressing issues ranging from natural disasters to the causes of unrest on the streets. Essentially these inquiries, which each cost around £10k (good expense claims for the board members), lead nowhere as the recommendations are never implemented. The implementation of recommendations is not what these activities are all about. Instead the setting up of a commission takes the heat out of a particular crisis and settles down protests and disorder on the streets. Invariably the media reports that a "top level" board has been appointed and the rioters go home. By the time the commission reports chances are the original problem has become history and no one notices or cares much whether anything useful has emanated from the process.

Just above this report on the front page of Wednesday's Post there was another report saying how the private education sector had finally caved in to government pressure to pay tax that could be directed towards the benefit of the (poor) government schools. After a lot of wrangling the private schools had agreed to pay subject to the tax being retitled "Education Development Support Fund" from the original "Education Service Tax". And to the appointment of a "high level" National Education Service Commission to define how the taxes would be spent...

Returning to the real world, I have just uploaded to the Trust's Flickr collection a batch of pictures taken this month by our volunteer photographer Jonny Cochrane. They show our integrated art workshop activities in Bhairahawa where deaf students work alongside child trafficking survivors whom we've rescued from the circuses. As well as learning mosaic techniques the students learn English and IT. It's been a great success and unlike commissions of enquiry the Workshop delivers real results.

Burning bright

For the past few months our students at the Bhairahawa art workshop - a mixed group of deaf school leavers and girl trafficking survivors from the Indian circuses - have been working on a large mosaic of a jungle scene with a sinister tiger. It measures 5 feet by 8 feet and the original design was by our volunteer art teacher from this time last year, Rebecca Hawkins. The work has just been completed and now it is on its way to an appreciative wall in Kathmandu. We hope this beautiful piece with spark some orders from discerning customers in Nepal.

Sue and Bill Thornton

Sue and Bill Thornton were two excellent and very popular volunteers at our Bhairahawa art workshop in November/December. Between them they extended the range of the tuition to incorporate lessons in IT (Bill's area of expertise), English lessons and "Iris folding", a craft technique favoured by Sue. I write belatedly about them as I have just found a film that they shot during their time there:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3-BQ2LZuoU

I found this through Sue's fundraising page (hint, hint) as she and family members will be joining me on the BUPA 10km run in London on May 25th. Visit:

http://www.justgiving.com/susanthornton1

By the look of Bill's chin he must have had to leave us in December to carry out duties elsewhere as Santa.

Film of an English lesson in Bhairahawa

Last week I filmed an English lesson at our art workshop in Bhairahawa. This would be nothing special were it not for the fact that the workshop - and the class - is an integrated one with some students being deaf and others able-bodied trafficking (circus) survivors. Normally I can post my film directly from YouTube to this blog but there seems to be some kind of a glitch preventing me from doing so. This being the case, here's the link:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOzWnkGR-7I&feature=channel_page

The integrated mosaic workshop

I returned last evening from an overnight visit to our project centre in Bhairahawa in the southwest of Nepal. Bhairahawa is a mere stone's throw from the Indian border and a slightly longer chuck from Lumbini, which is the birthplace of Buddha. In December we collocated our two mosaic workshops, transferring the child trafficking survivors at the Kathmandu workshop to join the deaf school leavers at the Bhairahawa workshop. This has proven to be quite fascinating and highly successful as disabled young people and able-bodied girls work side by side in an integrated workshop. The girls have all learned sign language and joining in their party games on Tuesday evening I really had to remind myself that most of the group was deaf. I found it lovely to witness the joy of it all.


A large part of the magical atmosphere of the place stems from the volunteers, past and present, who have given so much of themselves in inspiring and training the students. The workshop is currently managed by American artist Carol Hummel (http://www.carolhummel.com/om/) whose good humour and sense of fun is quite infectious. She has just recently been joined by a second artist, Hazel Fullerton, and the group is complemented by two gap year students over from Cyprus, Alex and Jade. The scope of the training has mushroomed - literally - with training in mosaics being complemented with English and IT classes and, er, growing of oyster mushrooms in a shed at the back.


With its proximity to Buddha's birthplace we hope that we can find a market for appropriate mosaics that can be offered to tourists who pass through the area. These are now being made in a range of dimensions from life size (that would work well in a local building) to small portraits that can be squeezed into a rucksack. My Presbyterian roots mean that I am not a particular fan of religious imagery (such things are banned from the kirk!) but if this theme gives jobs to marginalised young people I am all for it.

Terror on the Terai

In my post of 1st February I referred to the cover up over the pogrom that had taken place in Kapilvastu, south Nepal, last September. In what was a clear case of ethnic cleansing, extremists from the ethnic Indian (Madhesi) population had committed atrocities against the immigrant Nepali hill people (Pahadi) who have been living on Nepal's southern plains for the last couple of generations. The inquiry into the violence passed this off as just having been caused by criminal elements with no recognition of it having been inter communal strife. Today, as Nepal celebrates the declaration of a republic, I regret to have to write that this ethnic cleansing continues largely unreported.

The Esther Benjamins Trust has a major project activity in Bhairahawa, Rupendehi District, which is one along from Kapilvastu. I am reliably informed by a local contact in Rupendehi that Madhesi terrorist activities are being intensified there. Over the past week or two four Pahadis were killed in Rupandehi and over a dozen abducted, to be released only after payment of substantial ransoms. On 24th May the newly elected president of Bhairahawa's Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mr. Mahendra Kumar Shrestha (a Pahadi) received a letter from one Madhesi faction (JTMM) demanding almost £20,000 as a "Terai Tax". It was mentioned in the letter that Shrestha should pay the amount within 72 hours as a tax for running business and owning property in the Terai. According to the letter every Pahadi who wishes to remain in the Terai should pay a Terai Tax or expect physical punishment or death. The letter has been followed up with phone calls to Shrestha, threatening his life if he didn't pay immediately.

This is a huge challenge to the new Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, with Madhesi rebel outfits demanding their own Pahadi-free province running right along Nepal's southern plains. This would cut across possible future federal boundaries that might run north south in an attempt to delineate Nepal's farrago of other ethnic groups. And whoever controls that southern strip can put a stranglehold on the country given imports from India must cross this troubled territory.

A German volunteer

At the start of last year we had two outstanding German volunteers join our work, Katharina Tomoff and Micha Ludecke. Both are clinical pyschologists - just the kind of skills we need with traumatised circus returnees - and when they returned home they carried on the good work. This led to another German volunteer, Marie Therese Vollmer, joining us at the start of September this year. Marie has been great and, although fairly fresh out of high school, has had a lot to give. Her tour started in Hetauda where she quickly struck up a rapport with the girls. We then transferred her to join the children in Bhairahawa. Judging by the reports of tearful farewells from Bhairahawa last week (mirroring those when she took her leave of Hetauda) I think this project location has also been equally fulfilling for her. Since leaving Bhairahawa she's had a birthday in Kathmandu and is now on trek in the mountains. I am sure that this will be a year to remember.

News on the international adoption progress seems to be very difficult to read accurately. Things have been certainly moving, albeit excruciatingly slowly, and one or two parents have had children finally allocated. However it is quite impossible to distinguish between cases having been "considered" and "approved". I keep hearing stories of the pace of review being increased dramatically but I think it prudent to remain sceptical and not to book the pre-Christmas flights home just yet.

A short film from Bhairahawa

Last evening there were a series of power cuts as a result of the feeble local grid collapsing under the overload of the system by people illuminating their houses for Laxmi. Even if Laxmi, the goddess of wealth, were to be enticed into people's homes and lives it seems that the local power supply's failings could undermine any attempt at their attaining the desired prosperity. The power cuts also prevented me from uploading a video I took yesterday of the children rehearsing a dance. Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVpmzyC463A

The boy who is dancing, Akash, is one of two brothers that we found outside Tansen jail away back in October 2000. They were sleeping rough and getting food through the bars from their imprisoned mother. Akash is now a tremendous all-rounder, great academically, at sport and also at dance!

A visit to our refuge children in Bhairahawa

Today I paid a flying visit to Bhairahawa in the southwest of Nepal, close to the Indian border. It's where our work started out eight years ago before it expanded to Kathmandu and Hetauda. It remains home to 28 school age children (rescued from prisons or life on the streets) at the so called "White House" refuge and another 25 former circus children in the "Blue House" and "Red House" who are a little older. This latter group are undertaking a fast track course that will take them from zilch education to joining class 8 (about age 14) in a couple of years, essentially joining school at a level more appropriate to their age.

At the White House I was pleased to meet our four latest arrivals - two girls who are sisters of a former street boy that we'd been caring for and a boy and a girl that we have just brought from inside Tulsipur jail in the far west of the country. Assisted by the Director of our partner organisation, ex British Army Gurkha Gunraj Gurung, I was able to mount five mosaics at the buildings, mosaics that had been made in by Godawari studio and commissioned by supporters in the UK (www.ebtrust.org.uk/site/commissionamosaic.htm). The kids were clearly thrilled by these.

The White House children were all of school today as this is Day Three of the Tihar Festival. Day One and Day Two involved worship of the crow and the dog respectively. Today it was the turn of the nation's cows to receive a tika on the forehead and a garland. And after dusk the goddess of wealth, Laxmi, is worshipped and Nepali houses are festooned with lights (fairy or candles) in an attempt to entice her inside their dwellings. Children go from door to door singing and dancing, the so called "Bhailo", for which they receive modest amounts of money from appreciative neighbours. The White House children were rehearsing this afternoon and are aiming to raise enough pocket money to pay for a picnic for themselves.