So I was getting incredibly discouraged with efforst to support Bal Mandir, as it seemed like any money that was raised for the orphanage was not getting to the kids. Even some of the didis – women who live in the orphanage and take care of the kids 24/7 (who hadn’t been paid in seven months) - were selling baby formula boxes to stores to get money. However, May 1, I got incredible news.
Mitrataa (http://mitrataa.org/) is an Australian NGO that is run by Bec Ordish. They have been paying for scholarships for some of the girls at Bal Mandir, as well as running other projects on the ground in Nepal. And as of May 2, they took over running Bal Mandir for five years with the specific goal of creating a sustainable model, so that the Nepal Children’s Organization can not only run the orphanage after five years, but also use this model for the other eleven children’s homes they run in the Kathmandu Valley.
Already walking around the grounds, you can tell things are better. The kids have full plates of food with a variety of food, not just plain beaten rice. The didis are smiling and seem much happier. There are still many problems with the way that Bal Mandir is run, but already Bec, is trying to fix the most urgent things and create long term strategies for improving the rest.
One of the first projects Mitrataa organized was to clean up Bal Mandir. So Saturday, they spent the morning and afternoon scrubbing down the rooms, debugging mattresses, cleaning the outside showers and toilets, and picking up the trash littering the grounds. A friend of mine who runs a trekking company called Grand Asian Journeys (grandasianjourneys.com – check them out) brought ten of this guides to help pick grass and litter out of the brick courtyard outside the bathrooms. Also a friend visiting from America on a two week volunteer/trekking trip, a friend from the UK who is volunteering at a hospital in Patan, and his French roommate who had been in Nepal for three months spent her last day in Nepal at Bal Mandir helping out. And HimRights’ staff and friends of staff also came to help out for the afternoon – initiating the toilet cleaning, which was definitely the most daunting clean up area. Thank you so much to everyone who came to help out! (And thank you also facebookers for your long distance support J.)
