The Sundhara Project

Since March this year we have been training deaf school leavers in Bhairahawa, southwest Nepal, in mosaic art techniques. This initiative was profiled in an article, "Silent Beauty", in the Nepali Times of 21st March. The trainees have been learning the basics in advance of our major mosaic project at a cafe in Sundhara, Kathmandu. The link is that this is one of the Nanglos "bakery cafe" chain that is distinctive in its favouring the employment of deaf and other disabled staff. The plan is to place a large mosaic in each of ten wall panels that surround the open air atrium that serves as the cafe's dining and function area.

Sculptor Rebecca Hawkins, who earlier this year was a volunteer art tutor at our workshops for child trafficking survivors, is designing the artwork, using as a theme the wildlife of the Terai (the southern strip of Nepal). This morning she sent me her design for the first of the panels (see right). She'll now have an input from my friend British professional mosaic artist Jo Letchford and then the young deaf artists can get started on those tiles. The project will be part funded by the cafe and by two schools, Sha Tin College in Hong Kong and Kingston Grammar in the UK.

Rebecca (wearing black) is shown in the video below measuring up the panels at the cafe, assisted by Esther Benjamins Trust staff member, Camilla Kinchin, who is coordinating the project.

I hope this will be the first of many such projects in Nepal that will raise the profile of disabled and other stigmatised groups within society.

Sundhara

A very distinctive and attractive feature of the Kathmandu skyline is the Dharara tower in the district of Sundhara. I have a lovely view of it from my office window and I photographed it this morning from here looking resplendent in the Spring sunshine. Fashioned in a Mughal style it is much newer than it might look. It was originally built by a Nepalese Prime Minister back in 1825, perhaps as a symbol to any visitor, friendly or unfriendly, of the nation's wealth or power. However Mother Nature had something to say about that and it took a tumble in the great earthquake of 1934 having to be rebuilt from the two storey stump that remained.

Not far from the base of the tower lies the Sundhara Bakery Cafe, a branch of Nanglos. Inside the cafe you can find not only a rather nice plaque explaining the history of the tower (right) but enjoy one of the best smoothies in town. As per some of the other bakery cafes it employs disabled staff members who would not find employment anywhere else. The reason for my visit last Thursday was to investigate the possibility of mosaicing a wall at the cafe at the invitation of Nanglos, with the mosaics to be made by our deaf school leavers in Bhairahawa. It is going to be a massive undertaking but a challenge that everyone can rise to, not only artistically but also in finding the funds to complete the task. I look forward to filming progress by stages later on in the year.