Getting Up, Nepal

2 months after the first earth quake hit Nepal with the 7.8 Richter scale and the second one around 18 days after with a magnitude of 7.4,Nepal seems to crawl back from the aftermath of Nature’s fury. Around 17 districts were affected and badly damaged. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that reconstruction costs could exceed $10 billion, or half of national GDP of Nepal.To cope,Nepal Govt is organizing international conference for  rebuilding the country.  Govt of India pleaded 1 billion dollars for the same cause today 25^th June.Initial relief work for the affected people was supposedly amply supported from all over the world.

                

Amidst cries of relief not reaching the people and many areas left yet to served, Sewa International an NGO and its volunteers worked selflessly devoting time and energy to provide relief to the people. The 2^nd epicenter near Sindhupalchowk area saw distrcts like dholakha severely damaged and many hills declared unsafe as monsoon hits Nepal.Villages razed to ground and school buildings totally unsuitable to continue studies. Enquiring about damages in one such village to a local who happen to be in the nepali army,learned  each family endured loss of nearly  10-15lac Nepali Currency. School buildings worth Crores are now unsuitable and students are looking forward to an uncertain future with School Tents(Unicef Gave tents, 30 seated for classrooms) as the only hope as reconstruction will take a lot of time.

Being a volunteer myself for Sewa International, we travelled and stayed in Dholakha District bordering China and stayed there for 7 days providing relief to distant villages, serving out to nearly 4000 houses of around 20 BDC with 10-15 villages in each of approx. 100-200 houses . In many villages We were the first to provide them with some assistance. The People of the mountains are known to be Hard workers, fending themselves off in all situations and this natural disaster seemed no different to them. The locals were back to agriculture who had seeds to plant, brought out rubbles to use it again to build a temporary shelter ,they didn’t wait for help “They Helped themselves”.

     

An old woman once came to our relief center in charikoth with teary eyes. Her son had died. She asked for food, we gave her as much as she could carry. Kids asked for our help and we gave them hands full.The pleads of the people still ring in the ears. Heard stories where families of 10 shared their meal of mere 2 Potatoes and some handful of rice pained me.People breaking their own house in fear of aftershock stunned me. After yet another relief trip to a village in the afternoon, we went ahead for the relief distribution to the most remote ward of Dholakha district Jhyankhu ward 7 by road. On the way Rain wished to test our perseverance and we fought to save the food with all of our will by acting quick to use the tarpaulin for relief to cover the truck. Holding it for nearly one hour against rough wind and rain before it seized and the truck helper could tie the cover. An over loaded truck, steep roads, trees fallen here and there, we travelled with one thing ‘people awaits what we are carrying’. With 3 of my fellow volunteers, we pushed the truck, unloaded half materials mid way, waited in pitch dark roads with the materials before the truck came down to fetch us unloading the rest higher up the mountain, we still couldn’t reach our destination that night. Slept in a tent made by some organization for health camps in a school premise at a cliff. We started again the next day morning. The car failed by it brakes, It was impossible to reach the destination. The locals came for the support with carrying all the materials to our destination to hear our guys speak and distribute officially. People forgot their political affiliations to help the needy and that’s how humanity won.

 

With Medieval period building ,no proper engineering ,Nepal suffered big time with many heritage sites being damaged also. The yet another problem is the ever unstable political situation in Nepal with 8 Prime ministers in 9 years of Being Republic , Nepal needs to collect itself up to save the country from being pushed further down poverty and work together with the world saving its own people.

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Sewa International is now working to provide education materials to 30000 students across Nepal and has additionally taken up responsibility of 200 children with building Students’ home those who have lost their parents in the massive earthquake and uncountable aftershocks. Sewa International is also in process of reconstruction of schools and religious sites across Nepal.

     

Donate to Help Rebuild Nepal.

http://www.sewainternational.org

Let the Silver Ligning be there Again….

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