The Arhaus Children’s Home in Solukhumbu
News Update
The Arhaus Children’s Home in Solukhumbu
The destruction of families, resulting in homeless and orphaned children at severe risk from trafficking, child labor, and other serious abuses, has been a major issue in Nepal with the 2015 earthquake killing over 10,000 people, followed by the disastrous impact of the Covid pandemic and its continued effect on children’s welfare and education and, indeed, their very survival.
Such ongoing challenges created the need for building the Arhaus Children’s Home, generously funded by our long-term partners, Arhaus, a major furniture company in the United States, and brought to fruition in 2020 by many individual contributors, volunteers, and local community members. Fortunately, during the pandemic, we were able to provide shelter for many children as well as help the communities by sharing food, medicine, vaccines, and continuing education for the children. We were also fortunate because, in the earlier years of The Small World programs, we supported many children in their education, so imagine our great delight when many came forth to help during this pandemic by giving back and teaching at the Arhaus Home, especially since schools closed for the two years of the pandemic.
The Arhaus Children’s Home project is the first project of its kind in the Solukhumbu region and enjoys a deep connection with the local culture and communities. Buying food from local communities to feed the children helped to create a bond with locals and to generate income for them. For the children, maintaining a very close relationship with the communities is quite genuine since they speak the same language, share the same culture for understanding, and share roots in the same physical environment. This helps to keep the children connected with the communities despite their traumatic losses in the family, home, and security.
Here at the Arhaus Children’s Home, our goal has been to create a beautiful environment with peace, love, and brotherhood and sisterhood, especially since both boys and girls live here! It is very much a group effort with the children, we are proud to share, helping each other with great kindness both in groups and individually. Although the primary goal is to provide the gift of education for their future successes, there is so much more than academic learning going on. The children engage in physical sports, trekking, learning about farming and agriculture, and gaining personal and social responsibility with home duties such as doing their own laundry, taking turns cooking (even the boys), washing dishes, cleaning the house, etc. With this project active for almost two years now, we have watched the children change and become so different – very happy instead of traumatized and alienated; able to communicate comfortably and openly, especially by sharing their stories; demonstrating a growing self-confidence and self-esteem; and looking so very healthy with shining faces.
Earthquake resistance The Friends of Arhaus Children’s home in Solukhumbu
THE NEED TODAY:
Today, we have 70 children living at the Home and there is a growing need for more self-sustaining sources of nutrition combined with opportunities for income generation. We had secured 15 chickens which provide much-needed protein for the children and due to much land available, are free-range and organic. The children love the chickens, but it is even more important to increase the flock to 100 chickens.
OUR PLAN:
With an increased flock, we will be hatching baby chicks that will grow into mature chickens for further provision of eggs and meat, and selling eggs and some of the baby chicks locally for income generation.
We hope to plant 50 fruit trees of peach, pear, and kiwi, all of which will grow in this altitude with plenty of room for planting. These fruits will also be sold to communities for income generation.
These additions will provide further valuable and practical education for the students who will be maintaining the trees and caring for the chickens as well as enjoying a learning experience for business endeavors. In effect, it will be an investment that ensures self-sufficiency.
THE BUDGET:
Each chicken costs $10 so a total for 85 chickens: $ 850
Chicken coop plus pens: $ 1500 (estimate)
Each fruit tree is $10-12 so for 50 fruit trees $ 600 (estimate)
TOTAL INVESTMENT: $2,950.00
Hari and Manisha welcomed at Arhaus Children’s Home
Very recently, we have welcomed two new children to the Home. The boy, Hari Rana Payal, is seven years old, and his sister, Manisha Rana Payal, is 3-1/2 years old. Their father passed away from Covid about six months ago, so they had to work for other families as unpaid servants. Then, just last month, their mother committed suicide. To add to their challenges, they were born into the lowest of Nepal’s caste systems, called Daalid, which makes it very difficult to find work and guarantees suffering discrimination in the rural areas. Today, they are slowly beginning to smile again and are fitting in quite nicely with the love within the Home and from the other children. This is a representative story of most of the children here at Arhaus Home. Here is their picture as they arrived at the home.
TO SPONSOR A CHILD – A YEAR IS $1,500.
Includes: Education, books, uniforms, food, health care, etc. Basically, this includes entire expenses for a year.
Once a sponsor, you will receive a full biography and photo of the child you are sponsoring plus two updates of their progress and personal messages from them. Contact: karma@thesmallworld.org for more info and to sign up.
In conclusion, we owe tremendous gratitude to our friends and supporters, and especially Arhaus, for gifting The Small World for these most worthy efforts and drastically changing the lives of at-risk children who will be forever grateful. And thank you, everyone, for being part of our children’s family, and our deepest appreciation for always being there to help when we need it the most.