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.

10km musings

This morning was my first full ten kilometre early morning run in Kathmandu as I train for my competitive fundraising 10km events of this year. And I ran the course this morning in 53 minutes which is five minutes faster than when I competed in Hong Kong two months' ago. Extrapolation of this improving performance would indicate that in 20 months time I should be able to complete the distance in 3 minutes, which would surely be some kind of record?

En route at 6.30 a.m. I met a squad of Nepali armed police out on their own training run. Rather bizarrely they were running with rather than against the flow of traffic; maybe they know something that I don't. They were also running in their boots, a practice that is all good macho stuff, but one that was abandoned by the British Army about 25 years' ago. That followed the realisation that running in boots wrecks knee joints creating long term disabilities that were usually compounded by well-intentioned attempts by cack-handed military surgeons to repair the damage. Fit young soldiers were being turned into cripples. It is all very well running in boots (very quickly) when the bullets are flying, but the rest of the time it makes much more sense to wear trainers.

There are two sources of aerial pollution to contend with in early morning Kathmandu. The first is the clouds of dust that are swept into the air by Nepali women whose obsessional use of brooms seems to rival my current obsession for training. Given how common spitting is over here and the incidence of pulmonary TB this must constitute a major health hazard. The second pollution source is the smoke from the burning of rubbish which in Nepal tends to be done at the beginning or end of the day. One of my friends who is visiting at the moment deals with proper waste management back in the UK. He said to me that it would be so easy to use a modern incinerator to replace these bonfires, filtering out the toxins (apart from the CO2) and generate some badly-needed electricity for the city. That is something for me to chew upon - much like the free range cows of Kathmandu view the piles of combustible rubbish by the roadside.

Something to smile about

Our two Kathmandu refuge kids who have been competing in the 5th National Games in Nepal (see my post of 8th April) completed their gymnastic events with no fewer than seven medals to their credit. Aman Tamang won three golds while Bijay Limbu won a gold, two silver and one bronze. Next stop for the lads will be the next South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) games in December but I'd love to see them at the London Olympics in 2012. That's unlikely to happen as the training here would be inadequate and Nepal historically hasn't entered a gymnastics team to the Olympics. I've considered sending them abroad (specifically to Hong Kong where there is a large Nepali community) to continue their education and training but that doesn't seem to offer the appropriate standard of training either. Does anyone out there have any thoughts?

Palden (see 1st April post) seems to be recovering in hospital and is now conscious and off his ventilator. Yesterday one of our staff managed to coax a laugh out of him for the first time. He is recovering quickly but it remains to be seen how complete that will be.

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.

The National Games in Nepal

The Nepalese National Games started on Monday, the first time these have taken place in five years. Two of our Kathmandu children's refuge boys, Aman Tamang and Bijay Limbu, were taking part in the gymnastics events using skills that they learned the hard way through their time inside an Indian circus. After we freed them in January 2004 they chose to continue to train, attending the National Stadium in Kathmandu each morning before going to school. Today their efforts were rewarded with both boys picking up gold medals in the group event, and Aman winning a gold, Bijay a bronze in individual events. Two more gold medal events take place tomorrow so it's fingers crossed....

Sunday Life

The work of the Trust had some useful coverage yesterday in "Sunday Life", the Sunday edition of The Belfast Telegraph. I hope this leads to some additional sponsorship and a few fellow runners when I embark upon the Third World Run in Belfast on the 31st May.

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.

The coal mines of Meghalaya

This past week I went on a five day research trip into northeast India, joined by my colleagues Nick Sankey, Shailaja CM and Dilu Tamang. As our Circus Children Project draws to a successful close we have been looking at various other situations that could be considered as having a negative impact on Nepalese children who have found their way, by one means or another, to India. Over Christmas I had picked up a press report which suggested that there were trafficked Nepalese children working in the coal mines of Meghalaya, the Indian State which lies on Bangladesh's northern border. We decided to look into the mines (so to speak) and sent a research team there last month for a preliminary visit to meet the NGO Impulse and its dynamic Founder/Director, Hasina Kharbhih (who was named in the article). Upon receiving their intriguing report I felt that I wanted to see the situation for myself.

The target area for our visit was the Jaintia hills in the eastern part of the State, this being the main coal mining area. I suppose that this could once have been considered to be an area of outstanding natural beauty with considerable tourism potential but it seems to have suffered from years of environmental indifference that probably even pre-dated the mining which started just a generation ago. Driving into the area I noticed the almost total absence of bird life, including even the common scavengers that you see in the Himalayan countryside such as crows and myna birds. I suspect this is through a combination of hunting, the planting of sterile pine forests and burning of scrub which seemed to be going on all around. On top of this there is now the uncontrolled mining which is open cast, pit or "rat hole" - small tunnels that lead to seams in the hillside.

We had heard before our visit of the existence of a "coal mafia" which dominates the mining industry and of the risk to life and limb of nosing around and asking too many questions. However when we got to the area of the mines we were made most welcome and families were quick to share with us details of their lives. OK, perhaps we were being misled but the impression we gained was that we were in the midst of a community of Nepalese men, women and children - families - who were economic migrants, earning good money and living a decent domestic life. That's more than can be said of the rural areas of Nepal whence many of the families originate. Undoubtedly there are health and safety issues at the mines. Unlike Dilu Tamang (pictured bottom right) I elected not to descend a pit on a rickety ladder where the handrail consisted of no more than a branch. I am sure deaths and injuries go unreported in this isolated part of India into which the authorities or police allegedly fear to tread.

For now our jury is out as to whether or not we are looking at a trafficking problem as opposed to economic migration of families. We are assured by Impulse that unaccompanied children are trafficked there and that there are worse coal mines than those we visited. That is good enough to merit further research both in Meghalaya and in Nepal in the coming few months.

During our discussions with Hasina the issue of what constituted a "child" was raised. From Hasina's point of view the answer was simple; it is as per the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC) which has been signed by all the countries in the world with the exception of the USA and Somalia (strange bedfellows) i.e. under 18 unless national law puts the age of majority at younger than this. That is fine in theory but in practice it is a different story altogether. For if that criterion were to be accepted we would most likely have to end child labour and remove thousands of "children" who are in their mid teens from the coal mines. This would be tricky if the teenagers were there, desperate to work to avoid starvation for themselves and their families with no alternative social support in Nepal. And if you were to extract these teenagers it would be not only traumatic and violent but also probably a total waste of resources as they'd be back at the mines within a week of being repatriated back to Nepal with all its economic woes.

It takes a brave person within the development sector to risk becoming a pariah by challenging the widely-accepted truths of CRC but, very sadly, to me there seems to be a huge gap between its provisions and the needs of the real, impoverished, world.

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.

A good day in the courts

Three years ago our field staff were directly involved in the arrest of leading child trafficker Kajiman Shrestha (pictured right). He was responsible for the trafficking of scores of Nepalese children into the oblivion of the Indian circus industry, condemning them to a miserable existence of abuse and de facto imprisonment. He has been in jail ever since he was picked up. Yesterday he was convicted and sentenced to a further 15 years imprisonment.

Meanwhile in a court in India yesterday it was the fourth hearing in the trial of Indian circus owner Lakhan Chaudhary. Once more we provided a witness (one of his victims) for the prosecution. We expect there to be one more hearing next month and then hopefully justice will be done.

Ohio is on the up

Today marked my six monthly pilgrimage to the Indian embassy in Kathmandu to renew my visa. It takes nerves of steel to join the smoking hobos at 7.30 in the morning to queue for two hours in the cold before the office even opens. A survival ploy is to take a book and I thought Andrew Marr's (outstanding) History of Modern Britain would be as good a shield as any. No such luck. I found myself fourth in the queue behind an American girl who was in the company of a couple of geeky German kids. The girl's incessant chatter - interspersed every fifth or sixth word with "like" (one of my pet hates) - ensured that I was prevented from making any significant inroads into the social history of Britain in the 1960s. At one point she was asked where she came from and she confided that originally she was from "boring" Ohio. I reckon that Ohio must be less worthy of this slur now that she is over here.

OK, OK, I'm feeling a bit grumpy today and that's all down to my latest strategy to improve my 10km running performance. That involves the fat burning diet and at the end of day two of cabbage and onion soup and nothing bar water to drink the novelty has already worn off. Only five days left to burn, and this morning I'd lost 200g through day one's efforts.

Last week I reported on how the rescue team had gone to Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh to free three boys from domestic slavery. The team took along the boys' two sisters (former circus girls) to try and identify them in the bustling Moslem district of town. This was potentially quite dangerous but the girls were provided with a method of concealing their identity. See the picture on the right.

The very wealthy Dr Thapa

Dr Thapa of Lalitpur, Kathmandu is undoubtedly the wealthiest vet in the whole of Nepal if not in Asia. I am quite convinced of this for I know just how much of our personal money my beloved wife Bev gives him in the cause of street dog rescue, relief and rehabilitation. I went with Bev this morning to see the latest two puppies that she’s scooped off the mean streets of Kathmandu. They’re doing well and Dr Thapa’s eyes glinted as he told us of how one of them had got the day off to the best of starts by passing worms this morning. Nice.

The reason for my visit though was to see a bird that he is currently treating. Someone had picked up a barn owl with a broken wing and brought it to Dr Thapa who, aside from being ridiculously wealthy, is, I suspect, quite clever. He has managed to splint the broken bone with a steel rod and he told me that when he removes the rod in a month’s time the bird will fly once again. Meantime he’s lovingly forcing meat down the bird’s gullet to ensure it lasts the course.

Afterwards I consulted the internet to find out the lifespan of a barn owl. In the wild they live for 1-5 years whereas in a more sheltered environment like an owl sanctuary they can last for 20-25 years (I noted in the papers this week that the converse applies to zoo animals). But I also found out that barn owls largely hunt by hearing, not by sight; apparently their hearing is so acute that they can pick up a mouse’s heartbeat in a 30 square foot room. Just imagine how this morning’s owl must have been deafened by Dr Thapa’s pounding heart as Miss Moneypenny arrived at his practice.

Yesterday I met up with my partner Director, Shailaja, in Bhairahawa. She was fresh back from India with the three boys that she and her Deputy Dilu Tamang had rescued on Tuesday evening from domestic slavery in Varanasi. She was in buoyant mood as she told me that circus owner Lakhan Chaudhary, the defendant in Wednesday’s court hearing in Gorakhpur, had placed a 50,000 rupee (£700) price on retrieving our key witness against him. Shailaja said that this girl, who alleges that she was raped by him, gave a perfectly clear – and brave – statement in court as Chaudhary yelled at the Judge to listen to his voice as well as to hers. He was also screaming at his relatives and unsavoury friends in court for having let him down – presumably in part through failing to find this girl.

They didn’t find her because she’s been safely in our care ever since the rescue in January 2007.

Child rescue

I was actually quietly kicking myself at being in Hong Kong over the weekend as it prevented my taking part in a child rescue operation that occurred in Varanasi, north India last evening. The date of the Standard Chartered 10km event was inflexible as was that of a court hearing today in India that the rescue was linked to. In essence the story started with a circus rescue in January 2007 at the New Raj Kamal Circus in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh which was reported on by Tom Bell:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTs1NQOS9_I

The only inaccuracy in Tom's otherwise excellent report is that it turned out subsequently that we had found all of the girls who were at the circus. And the circus owner, Lakhan Chaudhary, went to jail where he has been ever since, pending trial. The trial started last month and the third hearing is due today. At that hearing we wanted to present two girls as witnesses, including the one who was interviewed at the start of Tom's film. The snag was that the girls were unwilling to speak as they each had one brother still in India in a bonded labour situation and potentially at risk from Chaudhary were they to give evidence. Last evening these boys and another one were rescued in a joint operation with ChildLine India and other partners. My colleagues Shailaja and Dilu, who were on the operation, are attending court with the girls later on today.

This is a big case for us as, if convicted, Chaudhary will be the first Indian circus owner to be sentenced. I will report in a future post on the details of what happened yesterday (once I have them) and how the legal case is progressing.

On a more mundane level, my official time on Sunday was 58 minutes and 22 seconds placing me at 1702 out of around 35,000 runners. I am thrilled to be so close now to my £20k target with the sponsorship now at £19,385. If you'd like to congratulate Shailaja and Dilu by adding to that total you can do so through:

www.justgiving.com/philipholmesbupa

Thanks....

I won!

Yes, I managed to beat the clock and get out of bed at 3.30 a.m. this morning. I was then placed fourth in getting to the start line at a ridiculously early time; I'm like that with timekeeping. I felt rather bewildered to be in the "warm up" zone, given that there was a healthy breeze blowing in off Causeway Bay. Then I saw others adopting pre-race contortions that I couldn't possibly emulate and the penny dropped.

Of course with the 5.15 a.m. start time that meant we would be running in the dark. But at least the fireworks which were set off as the race began worked to their best effect. Within 300 metres I realised that I was highly unlikely to win this race as scores were already racing away ahead of me. I was gratified to note though that one participant was already walking, so I certainly wasn't going to come last either. The route was a good one, following the eastern corridor motorway 5km out and 5km back; the organisers having had the good sense to ban traffic for a few hours. There were a few undulations to be dealt with but the marvellous views of Hong Kong were a welcome distraction during the run.

My (unofficial) time was 58 minutes and I was pleased to complete my first ever 10km event inside one hour. Now I have a target to beat at the BUPA 10km run in London in May. If I shed a little more weight I am sure that I can improve upon today's effort.

I believe I can probably claim one other victory. I would be surprised if any other runner this morning had the backing of £18,834 in sponsorship. If you played a part in helping me reach this amount, thanks very much! If you didn't you're still not too late to contribute. See:

www.justgiving.com/philipholmesbupa

The Esther Benjamins Trust is offering guaranteed places for the BUPA run. Drop me a line please if you are interested.

Endangered species

This morning’s (normally excellent) Nepali Times cover story is based on the national tiger census that has been taking place over the last couple of months. The article claims that the tiger numbers are “bouncing back” however later in the piece I read that the number of tigers actually identified is about the same as in the last census of 2000.

In spite of this apparent good news it has been a bad week for Nepal’s endangered species. In Chitwan, for the first time ever, a rhino had its horn removed by poachers without them killing the animal. One shudders to contemplate the agony that this animal must have experienced and continues to suffer. The incident took place near one of the Nepal Army checkpoints that guards the National Park’s animals and many believe that this was an inside job.

Elsewhere there was short-lived excitement at three freshwater Gangetic Dolphins being rescued by Army personnel after they had become trapped in a pond adjacent to the Koshi river. The dolphins were returned to the mainstream but one has since died. It seems that brainless locals got there first and put poison into the pond. And they got there first because conservation officers who should have conducted the rescue operation were off attending a meaningless “bird festival” somewhere.

When I read of all of this I am struck by how Nepal’s beautiful and fragile wildlife is so at the mercy of wicked, heartless people and hostage to the ineptitude or indifference of those who should be its protectors. Just like Nepal’s children.

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.

Not so vital statistics

I have just measured myself up to provide baseline figures for the fitness drive I am going to embark upon in the lead up to my participation in the BUPA 10km run in London next year. The data are not impressive.

Height - 1.74m
Weight - 80kg
Waist - 99cm
Hips - 101 cm

Oh dear. Consultation with the BUPA website indicates that it's currently not looking good for my prospects of avoiding a heart attack. My Body Mass Index (BMI) which is calculated by dividing weight in kg by height in metres stands at 26.42; a figure of between 25-30 is considered "overweight". Encouraged by the recent medical evidence that BMI is a less reliable measure of risk than Waist to Hip ratio I calculated that one enthusiastically. My optimism was short lived. The ratio works out at 0.98 - a figure of greater than .90 takes me into the high risk zone.

Anyway, encouraged by a family member's contribution of £2k towards my sponsorship page this morning the fitness drive begins today. As I am nearing my first fundraising target of £1k for every km of the run I am going to set myself a real challenge. I am no athlete, decreasingly so as the years go on, and have little chance of realising my idle boast to friends of being first across the line. Instead I am going to try to set a record for the amount raised by an individual and maybe also by a charity running team in this particular event. I am awaiting information from the event organisers as to what the highest sponsorship has been in the past.

Guinness Book of Records here we come!

The banality of evil

When Adolf Eichmann, the infamous architect of Hitler's "Final Solution" against the Jews, was finally captured and presented in an Israeli court in 1963 the public was in for a surprise. For his was not the face of an ogre. Instead a very ordinairy, diminutive, bespectacled bureaucrat was being accused of the most horrendous of charges. This experience led to a book being published called "Eichmann in Jerusalem" with the subtitle "The banality of evil". My mind turned to this last evening after I received this picture of Kaajiman Shrestha, a Nepali who is currently facing charges of trafficking children to the Indian circuses. He was apprehended by Esther Benjamins Trust staff after allegedly having been involved in sending scores of children to a living hell that masqueraded as circus life. He's of course not remotely in the same league as Eichmann, but he looks a fairly benign kind of a chap, one that you wouldn't look twice at if you met him in the street. If convicted he faces twenty years in prison.

Flickr

I have just embraced "Flickr" which allows me to share Trust photographs through an online album and that automatically places pictures onto this blog, Facebook and to my charity run fundraising page (hint, hint). I have uploaded a few pictures from our circus rescue in June, but I would recommend that you have a look at the trekking collection that I have uploaded this morning. Essentially the older refuge children who are taking part in the International Award scheme become involved in a range of activities from community work to adventurous training that develops them as well-rounded citizens, even the leaders tomorrow. Thanks to the Body Shop Foundation we were able to purchase trekking and camping equipment which has allowed the children to go off on regular trips with their carers and with guides.

The images of the happy children in the trekking collection belie the grim backgrounds that they've all come from. It is so common for our work to attract comment about "institutionalisation". Do these children look institutionalised to you?

I hate mobile culture

It became a running joke with my friends that I didn't possess a mobile until I reluctantly accepted one a couple of years ago. And then only because one of them bought me one out of exasperation at being unable to reach me. My problem was not with the technology per se - I love communications and ease of accessibility, particularly when trying to run a UK charity from Kathmandu and to stay in touch with friends and supporters. Instead I was troubled by becoming part of mobile culture, within which those who own the confounded things feel compelled to use and answer them, however inappropriate, wherever they may be and whatever the occasion. Take a look at the picture I received this morning of former circus girl Maya who I have mentioned in a previous post as being a talented distance runner. She's just 15 but yesterday came 9th in a 3km run against national adult athletes. In the picture she's receiving a prize from the local MP but just look at the geezer in the background who is so subtley (not) concealing his use of his mobile.

I am considering bringing Maya over to London for a future running event if my Trust can find some sponsorship for her nearer the time. That would be the chance of a lifetime for her and well deserved.

On the subject of which, don't forget my online sponsorship form for the BUPA 10km run:

http://www.justgiving.com/philipholmesbupa

Sponsorship is developing nicely as is interest from fellow runners. Two of my London-based staff, Chris Kendrick and Nadia Kamel, will be joining me, as will six other supporters (so far). If you would like to come too, registration for the race opened yesterday:

http://www.london10000.co.uk/site/?pageID=200