Relief sculpture

I popped into the Arts Rehabilitation Centre this afternoon to see how our volunteer sculptor, Rebecca Hawkins, was getting along. I had always thought of sculpture in terms of figurative items, statues and busts. But there's also relief sculpture and for the first time in Nepal it's being taught to (very enthusiastic) students. And more exciting is that the students are all trafficking victims, girls that we have rescued from the Indian circuses.

I am so proud of the quality of our work and that includes a huge admiration for students and tutors alike.

Visitors

One of my more pleasant tasks here is to receive visitors and introduce them to our high quality project work, a role that I have to try to balance with desk work. So far so good...

Today we had two very different visitors. The first of the day was Ivan Broadhead, journalist with Hong Kong's largest English daily, The South China Morning Post. Ivan has been researching cross border trafficking from Nepal into India and his enquiries inevitably led to us. I took him to see the arts centre which is now the main focus of our rehabilitation work with circus returnees. He seemed impressed and I was equally impressed with the sensitivity with which he interviewed a couple of the girls. My mind did go back though to a similar visit from The South China Morning Post in March 2000 that led to cover story in its Sunday magazine the following May. That in turn was syndicated to the UK's Daily Telegraph (see "My interview with the Daily Telegraph" in the link below) and it was that article that more than anything else launched the charity. One never knows what can become of good - and sensitive - journalism.

The second visitor was Carla Bachechi, a political and economic officer at the U.S. Embassy in Kathmandu. Timely, as this week I have been working on an application for U.S. State Department grant funding for our arts centre for a three year period starting in September. The application, which includes an element towards purchasing the premises, comes to just over US$300,000, and the deadline is tomorrow. That is when the application has to fall on, er, Carla's desk. But before one gets too excited at funding prospects, it should be noted that a similar application last year was turned down and once more we had to rely on the good old general public to keep our heads above water. So if anyone out there has a few spare dollars, do let us know.

Film of our art workshop in Kathmandu

Yesterday I went to visit our art workshop for child trafficking victims here in Kathmandu. I was delighted with the progress as I watched our UK volunteer ceramicist, Alex Hunter, teach the girls press moulding and pot throwing. In a classroom next door other girls were learning mosaic techniques.

When the course is over at the end of February I expect about half of the students to become employees at my new not-for-profit company "Himalayan Mosaics". The remaining girls will commence an advanced workshop. Ultimately all should enter good employment through jobs that we create and never again be vulnerable to poverty and the criminal intent of others.

There's a challenge!

Dashain difficulties

Each October we reunite children who are in our refuge care in Kathmandu with their families for the main Hindu festival of Dashain. We see this as being the bare minimum that we can do to maintain the family contacts that are so important in Nepalese society. It´s always a nerve wracking time for us though, for in doing so we expose the children and teenagers to family agendas that may not necessarily be in their best interests. Village families have little comprehension of the progress that their youngsters are making with us and they can spoil that success by pushing children in other disastrous directions. Last year we only just managed to stop a father sending his very talented son back to the exploitation of the circus, no doubt for a few dollars in return. Under our care that boy is now not only doing really well at school but also has become one of the top gymnasts in the country. I wouldn´t be surprised to see him in a future Nepal Olympic team.

This year we had a mini crisis over Priya. She was one of the two girls that I started training in mosaic art this time last year - an initiative that has now been extended to 16 others in my Kathmandu studio. She quickly became a top artist, having the perfect combination of skill and speed at her work. But her vulnerability is a case in point. She had returned from the circus to find both of her parents had committed suicide. Her aunt duly packed her off to another kind of slave labour inside a Kathmandu carpet factory and we rescued her from there in July last year. Last month she, like many other kids, wanted to go "home" for Dashain and of course we couldn´t stop her as she´s a free person. Then we received the news that she´d got married (she´s barely sixteen) to a boy that she knew from the carpet factory. That seemed to be the end of her short career and this otherwise totally uneducated girl appeared to be rejoining the cycle of poverty from which she had so briefly emerged. However it seems that all is not lost as we have since heard that she is very happy to be married and will set up home in Kathmandu. She also wants to continue with her mosaic work and I am very glad to agree to that wish. Hopefully having a good income - no doubt better than her husband´s - will help with the stability of the marriage. In the harsh reality of daily life in Nepal a wife who has economic value will be valued all the more.

This is the last day of my holiday in Spain. It has provided a break from the chaos of living in Nepal and allowed me to find some time to relax. I have also found the creative space to plan the future of my new company "Himalayan Mosaics" and develop some fresh directions for the Trust. It´s really been just what the doctor ordered - or more correctly what my wife Bev ordered. I am now ready for the fray once again.

Qualified support

The suitcases are packed and I leave at 5.30 a.m. tomorrow for the return journey to Kathmandu. The last two days have seen very useful meetings. The first one yesterday was with a supporter who's helping us to establish our presence on Second Life (http://www.secondlife.com/). This is a virtual world which I found rather chilling on first encounter. But actually it is very exciting and clearly has massive potential, offering another way to connect with supporters; this medium is already being used by some of the larger charities. The second meeting of the day was more conventional and I had a really useful chat with the Trustees of another charity that is prepared to fund the medication and clinical care required to manage HIV/AIDS. This isn't an issue for us at all at present but I expect that when we get to grips with the problem of trafficking of children into the Kathmandu sex trade it will be inevitably - and tragically - be very high on our agenda.

During this visit I also picked up some supporters' letters from my London office. One lady sent us a donation for our art workshops for circus returnees but wrote:

"Can you not bring them to do things through the schools to lead them all lots of jobs (sic) in our country - a more realistic life style?

I feel that you will fail in the attempt you are making and should help them by concentrating on training that will lead to jobs.

Please try to think of another way."

Some initiatives do indeed fail, others enjoy a degree of success (and even that is a huge achievement in Nepal) while others really take off. It's quite hard to predict which particular outcome one will experience and the only option is to keep trying. But for our art and mosaic training I am very confident of great results. This is already bearing early fruit. For example see the response to our online mosaic auction as of today:

http://www.ebtrust.org.uk/site/auction.php