This year has been an exciting year of fundraising for NCEF. Apart from our regular and new donors, we fundraised through two successful projects initiated by our two adventurous supporters – Brad Parker and Leia Barett. Mr. Brad Parker, a language arts and humanities teacher in the Locke Public School, Chicago and an avid mountaineer and Ms. Leia Barnett, an amateur mountain biker included NCEF in their adventurous endeavors to raise money for children’s education in Nepal. Brad Parker also involved his seventh-grade students in his effort. Brad raised $1,408 through the “Climb for a Cause” project and Leia raised $1,075 through the “The Big Frigging Loop Mountain Bike” project.

Apart from these projects, the “Recycle for Education” project initiated by Hem Pokharel and expanded by Amador Valley’s high school students in Pleasanton, California involved in the Club Mission Outreach group spearheaded by Sarah Chang raised $170 and $180 respectively.

Looking for innovative ways to expand our volunteer network and donor base, we started a “support our cause” link on Facebook, a popular networking site and raised $410 as a result this year alone.

They pop the top, hear the familiar hiss and down goes their favorite drink. But then what? Where do those cans and bottles go after you toss it into the trash bin? The obvious answer for the fortunate ones- the recycling center. It is well known that recycling such items saves resources, energy, time and money, all for a good cause, helping out not only the environment.  But for an organization such as the NCEF, recycling serves another desirable end.  Recycling also means generating enough funds to provide underprivileged students of Nepal with a sound education.

This amazing fundraising activity was first adopted here by NCEF volunteer, Hem K. Pokharel, a student of Environment and Geography. He thought of contributing something to the organization which would help fund an entire years worth of education for a child in Nepal. He sincerely wanted to help NCEF, although he was himself just a student. He wanted to achieve something new. Hem started his own recycling project from his apartment in Somerville, Massachusetts in 2004. He began by collecting all the leftover bottles that littered the streets, from his friends’ apartments, in addition to his own trash bin. The money generated out of this activity was then donated to NCEF.  He says the following about his recycling program: “There was a fair amount of bottles collected every two weeks. When I say fair, I am talking about 75 cents (15 bottles/cans). Every bottle is worth 5 cents. The amount I got for my first round of collection was a mere 10 cents. You may not believe me but I was extremely happy collecting that amount. I was happy to help recycle and make money for deserving children.”

Hem: "If we collect only one can it is 5 cents. If one person collects 10,000 cans in a year that is US $ 500/year. If 10,000 people collect 10,000 cans in a year. It will be 5 Million/year."

Bottle collection has now become Hem’s hobby and he plans to collect them the rest of his life. He has now extended his approach to various offices, apartments and restaurants. Altogether, the project has generated $790, almost enough to fund the education of eight Nepalese students. It is remarkable to know that if 10,000 Nepali people start collecting their own soda cans and bottles, nearly 5 million U.S. dollars can be raised and earmarked for educational funds - a fair chance for an ideal scenario where no Nepali child would then be left without a proper education. This fundraising project has that potential; it is just a matter of making people aware of its importance.

Club Mission Outreach member Crystal Chung collecting bottles

The success story of the recycling project reverberates everywhere. Sarah Chang is a high school student and an enthusiastic supporter of NCEF. She drew her inspiration from Hem when she accidentally came across the web page hosted by NCEF (Hem’s Project) while searching online for creative fundraising ideas. She has now developed a similar small-scale recycling project in her own high school (Amador Valley High School) in Pleasanton, California. With the help of volunteer friends from her group (Club Mission Outreach), she has managed to collect an impressive $185 for NCEF within just two weeks. The group scans through all the trash cans, parking lots and football stadium in their high school, for leftover cans and bottles. They carry out this activity three times a week, with each collection session lasting for one and a half hours. Finally, they transport all the collected recyclable items to the nearest recycling center, and all the money obtained from it is donated to the NCEF.

Sarah Chang, Krishna Bammakanti and Crystal Chung

Sarah shares some of the challenging aspects of her project: “It is often difficult to carry large quantities of bottles from home to school for the recycling cause; this leads to fewer students taking up the initiative. We face similar problems while transporting the collected bottles back to the recycling center. Likewise, the rancid smell of the unfinished soda cans is very hard to avoid during the assortment of all those mixed items. The use of bug-killer spray is restricted in our school. Hence, large quantities of bottles remains infested with swarms of ants and bugs during the storage process.” Despite all these hindrances, Sarah and her group have been consistent with their motives, and they plan to keep up this good work even after her high school.

NCEF has benefited immensely from such creative projects. The funds generated from them has injected optimism in Nepalese kids for a better education and a better future. With the recycling project extrapolating to a newer circle of volunteers, it seems as if much more is yet to be done. The development of a separate webpage for this cause is underway. This would prove to be an excellent medium for disseminating vital information about the project in future. Some fraction of the generated funds would need to be allocated carefully for the development of resources that would aid the recycling activity. For instance, supplies of latex gloves, trash bags, and other essential tools would need to be ensured for volunteers who would be carrying out the activity. Similarly, identification of suitable venues for recycling activity, identification of recycling centers, and assessment of the feasibility of such projects in other countries (including Nepal) need to be explored.

Recycle for Education

To think, just by recycling a can or a bottle once destined for the landfill, we are keeping our local environment clean, providing a needed resource for the recycling process, and most importantly, helping to provide assistance to those in need of proper education. It is a win-win for the individual, community, business, industry and the environment. Now, you can almost hear those cans clattering!!!

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NCEF is pleased to announce the appointment of the student selection committee for 2009. The committee comprises of the following members:

• Bigyan Acharya
• Maheshwor Kafle
• Bhusan Neupane
• Laura Satkamp
• Uttam Sharma
• Hari Tripathi

Each selection committee member ranks the applicants based on information from applications and recommendations. The ranking from all selection committee members are averaged out to create a final ranking for that geographical area (e.g. Nepalgunj, Patan, etc). Top candidates from this list are selected whenever a slot opens up in the area; NCEF volunteer and financial resources determine the number of slots. All the selections should satisfy the general requirements set by NCEF (also can be found at http://www.nepalchildren.org/selection_criteria.html). If certain renewal applications require special consideration, the committee reviews such applications carefully, often interacting with the field volunteers for additional information and documenting any requirements that are waived. The selection committee can be reached at [email protected].

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Thanks to your generous contribution and support, NCEF has approved Lamatar as a new area. Lamatar lies in the Eastern part of Lalitpur district, only a few hours away from the capital. More than 90% of the people belong to the socio-economically deprived ethnic groups (Dalits and Tamang community) with incomes less than $25/month. Due to the low income level and high illiteracy rate, most children are forced out of school by their parents. According to our area coordinator, Mr. Manoj Ghimire, only a mere 10% of the students appear for the SLC examination (a nation-wide examination for 10th grade graduation).

Lamatar is designated as "areas under evaluation" as outlined in our New Area Identification Program. The continuation of the new area will be based on metrics such as achieved student visit frequency, report filing, promptness of communication, overseeing costs, and quality of applications and reports.

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NCEF is pleased to announce the selection of two new students from Rasuwa. Rasuwa was approved by the executive board and is designated as "areas under evaluation." NCEF received six student applications and although all six of them were deserving, the selection committee had to make a tough decision on two as having the most need. NCEF is pleased to introduce our new students Pori and Urghen.

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Pori is 9 years old and lives with his father and step mother. Pori will be in 4th grade and has been described as intelligent by his Principal.

Urghen is 6 years old and did not attend school last year due to financial reasons. Urghen lives with his father, grandmother and sister.

Meet our New Students