“I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library.” — Jorge Luis Borges
Himalayan Quests in thrilled to be working with Shree Bal Shikshya Niketan Lower Secondary School, Gabde, Syanja, in mid west Nepal, in order to help them establish and run a school library. This small government school was established in 1960 and provides an education for approximate 270 girls and boys in classes’ nursery to class 8. Located on the slopes of a hill, overlooking the market town of Waling, there is no school bus service and all the children and teachers have to walk from the surrounding villages, with some children walking for as long as 1 hour each way for their education.
A typical, rural government school, it may be small and under resourced, but it has big dreams for the children under its tutorage, starting with the creation of a school library, which it hopes will also double as a computer lab.
Himalayan Quests has been working with this school for a number of years, and the company’s founder, Amrit Ale also attended it for his nursery to class 1 education. The venue once again for our annual health camp in April, Gabde School as it is affectionately known, will ring to the sound of hammer and chisel as book shelves, desks and chairs are made in order to make their library dream come true.
Bob and Sally Blair, two volunteers from the USA have given up their time to join the rest of the Health Camp team in their journey to the village next month, to work exclusively on the school library. Bob and Sally are retired teachers and have always had a love of children and education. Bob, besides being a teacher, has spent time making furniture and building homes. Sally was a children’s librarian before returning to college to get her teacher’s license. When they learned that the village school had few bookshelves and furniture, Bob offered his services to help create and teach the villagers to make furniture for the library. Given her librarian experience, Sally thought she might help the teachers organise the books. They have enlisted friends and family to help fund this project and are looking forward to the challenges of working with the community members to create a functional library that will serve the local population way into the future.
The school has been collecting books to put on its new shelves, as has Himalayan Quests and we would like to thank everyone who has donated, either fiscally or in terms of books to this project.
“There are many little ways to enlarge your child’s world. Love of books is the best of all.” –Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more you learn, the more places you’ll go.” — Dr. Seuss