Yesterday, we celebrated festival called Gai Jatra . I have captured some pictures of festival .I will post it on Sunday. This year we loosed 5 members of our community Yoshinkhel. Following is details of festival.

Gai Jatra is a festival, which was initiated by one of the Malla Kings (Pratap Malla) in the hope that his Queen would overcome her grief over loosing a son. He decreed that all those who lost a member of their family during the past year should bring out a procession to honour them. In this way he hoped that she would realize that she was not alone in her grief.

It is believed that on this day Yamaraj, the God of death opens the gates to let the dead in. It is he, who decides where each one is reborn while the cow leads the dead through Yama's gates. The cow is a sacred animal for the Hindus thus it finds a place among the Gods.

The Gai (Cow) Jatra is celebrated in Kathmandu
Valley (Kathmandu,Lalitpur, Bhakapur). The most interesting of the celebrations among the three cities is in Bhaktapur. Here you can watch hundreds of drummers playing their individual drums with skill. You will notice the different ensembles take turns to play their repertoire. Then there are flautists and stick dancers dressed neatly in uniform. The loud music and the excitement of the crowds lends a truly carnival atmosphere to the proceedings. People dressed in all kinds of apparel take to the streets. Some wear animal fur to resemble a gorilla; some men are dressed as women and dance with a male partner enacting every- day scenes like pouring imaginary wine into an imaginary cup, which the partner pretends to drink. Many are dressed comically and the belief is that this was in order to make the mourning Queen laugh.

Dear neighbours,

I would like to inform some facts of Yoshinkhel.

Here are the following things I want to eliminate from my society so that they can improve their lifestyle.

1) Early Marriage and birth at very early age is very common in my community so at the time of education and development they spend their life looking after their family and young ones.
2) Unemployment is the major factor that drag people towards the poverty and crime. 3) Untidiness and lack of clean enviroment is the main factor that is causing diseases and different health problems. People here in my community are unaware about the necessity of tidiness.
4) Above all the main important factor that is blocking the way of development of the community is EDUCATION.
In my community, Most of the children and families still dont know the importance of education, so they drop out of school and colleges.

The first solution is to work from children.

Hence, being a community member , I want to eliminate all these above factors with the help of Neighbour .
I want to request my neighbour friends to hold my hand to help them so that they can live better life, get good education, get good employment etc.

Regards
Sabina

Dear Sabina,

I really appreciate your determination to help your community achieve a better state of living. Such dedication is needed to a village that needs attention and I join you in your cause for the children of your village and I really hope we can achieve together your main objectives.

All the best! :lol:

Junjun

Dear Junjun,

Thank you for joining my village and hope to have more contributions from you.
Yes , we can achieve together our main objective with the help of all neighbours.

Best regards
Sabina

Dear Sabina and Deepshi,

I was able to browse through the discussion in our Facilitator village and got this very informative tips from Eustace, one of the Facilitator. Please refer to it as one of your reference for future use and I truly hope this is of big help to you. Here it is:

Funding search tips for use
Dear N
We need to have these tips to be effective in our search for funds. I tot i should lets share it.

Use this checklist to develop profiles of the funders you research - building your own information base might prove very helpful and will save you a lot of time in the future.

* Do you have full and correct contact details of the funder?

* Does the funder support the specific subject area for which you are seeking resources? For example, if you are seeking funds for a programme involving university education, you should immediately cross off your prospect list those funders interested only in early childhood education.

* Does the funder indicate an interest in your country or geographic region?

* Is the funder a grant-making or an operational foundation? Operational foundations prefer to carry out their own programmes and usually do not accept funding applications. They can, however, offer valuable expertise in their stated programme interests.

* Does the funder make grants for the type of support you are requesting? For example, if you seek funding for a conference, you should not approach a funder that explicitly states it does not support conferences and seminars. Most funders have restrictions or limitations on their grant-making programme.

* Does the funder only support major, consortia projects that may involve a number of organisations, including governmental partners? For example, you should not request support to equip a single school laboratory from a funder that is only interested in the development of the administration of a country's education system.

* Does the funder make grants for the amount of money you will be requesting? As a rule, you should not request 20,000 euro from a funder that never made a grant above 5,000 euro, or alternatively, you should not request 5,000 euro from a funder that states they do not make grants smaller than 20,000 euro.

* Does the funder require matching funding? Most funders require or encourage matching funding although they do not always state it explicitly. Check your funder's position before submitting the application as he may not wish to support the full cost of a project and might ask for evidence of other funding.

* Does the funder accept full project proposals or does he prefer letter proposals? Is an initial, brief letter of inquiry required before submitting a full proposals.

Eustace

Best regards and more power!

Junjun

Dear Junjun,

Thank you for your helpful fundraising tips

Best regards

Sabina

Dear Sabina,

I would like to share a certain idea it might be useful for girls in your village. We have a program called Valuable Girl Program.

Here general idea about it:

The Valuable Girl Project is the innovative Coptic Orphans development program
with the goal of empowerment of girls and young women through the creation and
provision of role models. It uses an educational mentoring model, through which
young women in secondary school become role models for girls in primary school
by a one-on-one mentoring relationship. The program focuses on high poverty
areas of Egypt , where girls of all ages face a high risk of dropping out of
school due to poverty and bias against girls. This program supports all girls in need of it.

In the program, girls in high school and college are trained to be role models
and academic mentors to girls in primary school. Through one-on-one mentoring
and tutoring, these “big sisters” read stories and do homework and other
academic activities with their “little sisters.”

All participants in the Valuable Girl Project become empowered. The “big sisters” realize the value of their education for their empowerment through the
responsibility of assisting a younger girl in her schoolwork and serving as a
role model. They receive a monthly stipend, which is given directly to them and
which they are free to spend as they wish. They become leaders in their
community and advocates for girls’ education. They find support in each other,
as some of the few young women who have reached higher levels of education in
their villages.

Any comments are welcome.

Good Luck

Nawal

Hi

New to all this, so just trying to get a grasp of what you need. There are several needs in the village i.e. both daycare and adult learning.
Q - Are these to be done out of the same building/room?
What you need help doing......as I understand, it is to build a Business Plan, but also guidance on setting up both the Daycare and Adult learning centre....

I work with a Daycare Foundation in Thailand, so can get some instructions from them, although most of what they have is in Thai. There is also the Bernard van Leer Foundation, who specialise in children 0-8 and have some interesting stuff on their website. www.bernardvanleer.org

In my experience, if you have 30 children, then you will need at least 2 rooms. The question is how young will you take the children?

Well, just starting with my ideas, so let me know how best I can help.

Simon

Thanks for your ideas sharing.

Well! We have two storey building under construction. We are planning to use this building as day care and learning centre. Ground floor will be used for learning centre and upper floor will be used for child day care.

The measurement of land is:
Left Length =33 ft and Right Lenght= 36 ft
Front breadth= 21 ft and back breadth= 18 ft.

The age of children will be between 1-5.

Yes, we are preparing for business plan for child care and learning centre.In which , we inlcude all guidance on setting up both daycare and adult learning centre.

Pls see business plan outline ,input your ideas and post on the forum( on discussion) .

Your contributions are highly appreciated.

Best Regards
Sabina

Namaste !

We are celebrating our National Festival "Dashain " from tomorrow.

We enjoy Dashain with:

Holidays - Rest and Relaxation for nearly 10 days!!!
Shopping - Clothes for children,Mum & Dad and all family.
Dashain Bonus : One month’s Bonus!!! For farmers, earn bonus by selling their highly demanded agriculture and live-stock products in return for a good cash.
Eating - Meat, Sweets, Fruits, and meat products again.
Visiting - Meet Family and Friends near and far. It is about forgiveness, kindness and respect, all of which prevails so broken families come together.
Kites - Children love the season for flying Kites
Tika and Love - Receiving and Giving Tika and Respect. Getting a tika from an older person in your family or from relatives or from anyone is a blessing.
Money Notes - stacks of new notes to give! Normally banks are busy doing this in the period.
Cleaning - Clean and decorate homes.
Gambling - although not legal, but it's played!
Fairs and Celebration - ride, eat, play games, be with friends!
Puja - Last but not the least, Worshiping God for Peace and Prosperity which Nepal needs much at this moment.

Cheers
Sabina :-P

Dear Sabina,

Have an enjoyable celebration. May you have a peaceful occasion and a great time with all the people of your community.

Best regards,

Junjun

Dear Sabina,
i would like to let you know that I am visiting Nepal this month on 25th and I hope to meet you, so we can discuss together the possibility of implementing the a program for girls in your village.

thanks

Nawal

Hello Nawal,

Thats great ! I am so excited to welcome you in Nepal and Yoshinkhel Village.

Anxiously waiting for your arrival.

Regards
Sabina

Sabina Matangi
The local representative
Yoshinkhel Vilage
Bhaktapur.

Dear Sabina,
I am very much impressed to read about your great social work in Yoksinkhel Bhaktapur.
I would like appreciate your great humanitarian work.

Would you like to tell me how far is your village from Kathmandu? Can I come to visit your village too? How many people have been getting support from your program? What kind of support have the been getting from the program?
I also wonder how you were familiar with NABUUR.COM. Did you study in Holland?

I am a teacher of Himalaya Higher Secondary School Khandbari. Have you been to Kahandbari yet?
Since 1997 we have been ruining SESF (Sankhuwasabha Education Scholarship Foundation in this

Sankhuwasabha District. I am the secretary of the organization.

Now I have been studying about the NABUUR.COM. I have also filled up the application form.
I am looking for ward to hearing from you.

Wishing you and your program all the best.

Sincerely,

Tejanath Pokharel

Secretary
SESF Khandbari