Nepal Visit Dave Thomas

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A Supporters view


Last November I had the pleasure of visiting Nepal for the eighth time, this visit was to be very
different to my previous trekking experiences. On this occasion I was in the company of Mike Hagen
and Samden Sherpa from Classrooms in the Clouds and the trip focussed on visiting as many of the
CITC projects as we could fit in to ten days. As a long-term supporter of the charity this is the first
time that I have had the opportunity to see it in action and I thought it would be useful to share my
experience with other supporters.

How I became involved

It was my first visit to Nepal in 2007 that ultimately lead to my involvement with CITC. I was part of
a trekking group that successfully climbed Mera peak and one our guides was a young Sherpani –
Mingma Sherpa. It is interesting how things come together but having fallen in love with the place
over a number of treks I was looking at what I could do to give something back to the country. It
was at this time I noticed on Facebook that Mingma had become a teacher and was being sponsored
by CITC. I had been thinking of sponsoring an individual student but then realised the multiplying
impact I could make by sponsoring a teacher and that was how my connection with CITC began.




2007 – Mingma (R) on the summit of
Mera Peak with one of the group’s
western leaders. Everest is in the
background.






Kathmandu

I was met at Kathmandu airport by Gombu Sherpa, who took me to the hotel navigating through
some interesting road conditions (even for Kathmandu) courtesy of new water pipelines being
installed. On arrival I met the rest of the CITC team based in Kathmandu, including Samden Sherpa,
CITC’s Education Development Officer who was to be our guide, and Mike.

The business of the visit began within a couple of hours of arriving in Kathmandu, a meeting with
Pete Patterson of the Collective Schools Network. In his schools in Kathmandu, Pete has developed
lesson plans for early years education (and training in how to use them) for the core subjects of
English, Maths and Science. CITC works closely with them and the CITC sponsored teachers are
actively encouraged to use the plans. An interesting early insight was that although many schools
are making use of this great resource some had still not collected their copies some months after
they had been sent to a local distribution point. There are clearly differing views amongst the
principals over what is needed to support education. These guides became a regular topic of
conversation later in the visit.

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Kharikhola

The visit started in a very typical way with Lukla airport being closed due to cloud and all flights were
cancelled! Thanks to the efforts of Gombu we managed to get a helicopter to take us. Even this,
however, was forced to drop us short of Lukla at a village called Surke. Not all bad news actually, as
this put us 2 hours down the trail to our first school visit in the village of Kharikhola. Still a tough
day’s walking of 6 hours after the jump in altitude and we arrived in the late afternoon just before
school closed for the day at 4pm.

For a first impression this was a great place to start. The Early Years Centre was funded and built by
CITC in 2018 with generous support from Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service Fire Apprentices; it is very
well constructed and designed to meet the post-earthquake building standards. It consists of 4
Classrooms and covered area common to all the classes. It looks great and is being well looked after
by the school who clearly see it as a treasured resource.

The CITC
classrooms are to
the right of the
picture with the
green roofs.































We had the opportunity to witness some early years teaching underway and it was good to see how
engaged the children were with their teacher. Even with Mike and myself sat at the back of the
class their total focus was on the lesson. Incidentally the lesson was being delivered using the
lesson plans previously mentioned and Samden spent the time viewing the children’s work books to
assess the quality of the teaching being delivered.

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We also saw the fantastic piece of artwork volunteer Lynda Roberts had helped the children create
and the library area created by volunteers Cathy Bremner-Owen and Brenna Shaw. Interestingly
the teacher we were watching has recently taken up post having returned from Kathmandu as she
wanted to give something back to her village.





















Artwork and Library.

The early years
lesson we
witnessed,
showing the
quality of the
school building.

















Give children great facilities and they will
still play in mud!

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It was here that the mission of Classrooms in the Clouds became much clearer to me. A phrase that
I was to hear many times during the trip from Mike was that ‘a classroom has never taught a child
anything’. The focus of CITC is definitely on what happens within the classroom, focussing on how
the teaching is delivered and what the outcomes will be for the children. The classroom merely
delivers a kickstart to this process by providing an excellent environment for the learning to take
place. CITC have agreed to sponsor one teacher here and had provided training for the teacher we
were watching.

CITC also has a very clear focus on providing strong role models for the girls in the communities and
for this reason mainly sponsors female teachers. It was interesting to see the dynamics during our
conversations with the teaching staff later. The female teachers were very quiet and kept to the
back of the group, often seeming uncomfortable talking in front of the men. Conversely some of the
men seemed to resent, in my opinion, the deliberate focus of our conversations on the female
teachers.

This was also my first introduction to the other side of the CITC mission of providing good quality,
gender-specific toilets and it was encouraging to see that, as part of the visit, Mike spent time
making sure that they were in good order with water available at all the taps.


Thulodhunga and Damku

The next day began with a pleasant walk down 1100m to the Dudh Koshi river, taking us away from
the main mule-train route and away from the dust clouds they create. The first visit was to
Thulodhunga where CITC built 6 classrooms in 2015 with the help of the Cheshire Fire Cadets. As the
school had been built in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake there was much evidence of
work funded by CITC since 2015 to reduce the risk to the school of any future landslides. The
highlight of the visit here was the agreement for CITC to support 2 female teachers. This had been
something of a challenge. The school had hoped that CITC would sponsor an additional teacher (not
in the early year’s area) and they had not put themselves forward for sponsorship due to the fact
that they might be seen in a bad light if this blocked the school’s hopes. Again another great story
of the ability CITC has to change attitudes. It was through attendance at a CITC organised training
event that the two teachers met other female teachers and felt themselves confident enough and
empowered to apply for the roles after all.

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Classroom scenes at Thulodhunga






















The very well-built toilet
block at the school also
showing the fresh water
taps. This is one of the
schools where CITC has
built water filtration
systems and this can be
the only truly fresh water
that the children get to
drink.












Part of the work undertaken to protect the school
from landslips in any future earthquake.

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The next school we visited was Shree Padmakanya in Damku where CITC sponsors one teacher and
has provided library facilities. We did not spend too long here as the key thing was visiting the CITC
sponsored teacher and checking on the library.


Mike checking out the great library facilities


















Although many classrooms are recently built/refurbished by other NGOs, it is clear that the
classrooms at this Damku schools have not been built to the post-earthquake Nepal Government
building codes followed by CITC.


Gloomy Environment in Refurbished Classrooms Limited Weather Protection in Refurbished Classrooms

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Shree Kanku

This was a very interesting day and I was privileged enough to witness a project at the very early
stages. We were visiting Shree Kanku with the objective of agreeing to build some new classrooms
for the school, with Mike and Samden very kindly inviting me to be a part of the meetings that were
held. Prior to the meeting we had the opportunity to visit the existing school buildings and this
really highlighted the need for the work of CITC in 2 ways. Firstly, the state of the existing buildings
that the children are being taught in would not be acceptable to house livestock in the UK. The
photos below show the state of the buildings that CITC are proposing to replace.





















Below is one of the classroom walls; you can see children being taught in the class behind them.

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The other way the CITC approach is needed is shown in the photos below from a 4 x classroom,
government-funded project being built at the school.



My engineering specialism is
nuclear rather than civil but I was
certain that this is not high quality
construction. No reinforcement
bars were evident at all.

It is worth going back to the start of
this tome to compare this with
what CITC are delivering.








An ‘interesting’ staircase under
construction.











And finally, all very well meaning, but the classrooms shown below were built less than a year ago by
another organisation and are not able to withstand the typical rural Nepal environment.

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The meeting itself was a lesson in the way things work in Nepal work. Many groups were
represented with over 20 people attending the meeting. The photo below shows the key players –
the local ward chairman (probably the equivalent of district council), the chair of the school
management committee, the chair of the parent teachers association and finally the acting school
principal. All shown in the photos below.



















Samden showing the new building on his Macbook. And the interest it generated amongst members of the PTA



After many introductions the meeting was primarily conducted by Samden who explained what CITC
were offering and what obligations were expected from the village. CITC clearly have a very able
local representative in Samden. In what is a very hierarchical society Samden (only 28 years old)
was clearly at ease and very competent when dealing with senior figures in the local community.
The highlight for many there was the visual representation of what the classrooms would look like.
Photos below show the way it was displayed and the interest that resulted.



The community is expected to make a contribution to the project and, in reality, this generally a
commitment to remove existing buildings and prepare the land for construction. As the building
code requires specialist skills, CITC commissions its own core team of trusted builders, who I met a
couple of days later at another project, to
ensure that the building standards are
maintained. When needed, local labour is used
to support the core team.

By the end of a successful meeting it had been
provisionally agreed to build at least 6 new
classrooms at the school. The afternoon was
spent walking to the village of Waku where we
were going to be based for the next couple of
nights.

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Waku
Waku is a small village but has a significantly sized school that caters for all age groups. CITC
sponsor two teachers here and have provided library facilities. It was good to see the level of
engagement from the school principal here who clearly understood what CITC are trying to achieve.
This was very evident in our tour of the early years classrooms as shown below.



















The importance of using
female teachers as role models for the girls was again demonstrated with the CITC sponsored
teacher Purnima Rai, showing it is possible to have a young child and still have a career.
Interestingly her home was some way from the village and she made it work by lodging in a tea
house local to the school.

Shree Waku CITC sponsored teachers:
























Purnima Rai and baby

Sukubari Rai

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The other aspect here that showed the importance of a regular presence was that the CITC-
provided, library was closed for much of the school day. This was because it was seen as a highly
valued facility by the school and my assumption is that they wanted it to remain pristine. After
reviewing the philosophy of why it was provided in the first place, the principal promised to change
the opening times.
The main activity of the next day was to visit a school about 2 hours walk from Waku that is seen as
another potential project for the charity. This was a school that clearly has a need for support as
can been seen from the early years class shown below.





Some desperate conditions to be
teaching in but this school has seen a
lot of investment from other charities
having built classes and land was
being cleared for another couple.












Interesting to note that, what looks
like a new classroom, is actually the
building being used by the principal
and the teachers.








The time spent here showed me that CITC do not spend the precious donations lightly. Although a
clear need was seen, Mike and Samden agreed that the school leadership were not clear on what
they needed or planned to do to improve the education of the children. As a result, CITC would
offer limited support in the form of training places at CITC events and a partnership would begin to
support the school leadership in developing their ambitions for education in the school.

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Shree Bakhapalam

The next day was mainly spent moving to a new area and after a full day’s walking we arrived at
Bakhapalam. As this was a Saturday, it was the one day of the week when schools are closed. We
stopped en route to enable Samden to catch up and check in with one of the Bakhapalam teachers
who lived in the village and we used it as a lunch stop. These meetings were always valuable and it
was in meetings like this that some of the challenges the teachers face became much clearer to us.
One particular challenge that raised its head on a number of occasions was many schools (and the
parents of students) like to see lessons taught in English. The lessons plans recently introduced by
CITC have the teacher material in English and Nepalese. This creates challenges for the teachers in
the lowest years when maths and science books have English words that have not yet been taught in
the English syllabus. Not sure what the answer is but to me the most important factor is learning the
subject and the insistence on English may be hindering learning. I must stress here that this is not a
CITC thing but driven by the government.

On a much lighter note we also met these children
after lunch who stopped us to practice their English
with us. A really engaging bunch who also shared
their ambitions with us. If they are successful you
are looking at one engineer, two doctors, one hotel
manager and the lad on the left has yet to make up
his mind.






Another highlight of this day was the overnight accommodation. Previous nights had been spent at
homes with rooms set aside for visitors. Due to a lack of acceptable accommodation, we had a true
homestay with the family of Bimala Nastring Rai who CITC sponsors at Bakhapalam. A delightful
family who showed us fantastic hospitality, particularly the CITC teacher and her sister who had to
vacate their room for Mike and me. Their room, shown below, is open to the elements and it
showed what a tough life the rural Nepalese live before they even think about going to work.




















The bedroom for 2 sisters with all their possessions The ‘door’ to their bedroom - a curtain you could draw!

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The actual visit to the school demonstrated the challenges of working in this environment. CITC has
provided classrooms here as well as sponsoring teachers but the main point of our visit was to see
the new fresh water system that had been installed. Whilst it looks great and is providing fresh
drinking water for the school, Mike was dismayed to see that an opportunity had been missed in
that it had been placed too low to provide a feed of fresh water school toilets. This is as an
important factor in supporting the menstrual health training that has been happening. The good
news is that it will be possible to relocate the system to a higher position that will feed the toilet
block.



Shree Sagarmatha, Bung

The next day was to be one of the visit highlights with a visit to the school at Bung where, as well as
sponsoring 2 teachers, CITC are constructing 8 classrooms. We were there to check mainly on
progress and it was all looking very good for the planned opening in March 2019.






















The main building work and the stunning Another view of the building project with the
outlook it has. This project has 4 classrooms ‘chippies’ workshop in the foreground
in the foreground similar to the school at
Kharikhola, with another 4 in a terrace
arrangement to the rear of the photo
The building standards were clearly of a much higher
standard than we had seen in the government builds
elsewhere. This can be attributed to the skilled team
led by Sonam Sherpa, a very experienced civil engineer
trained in Japan and the oversight of CITC (Nepal) Board
Member, Dandi Sherpa.










Mike and Dandi inspecting one of the desks, built
on site using local materials User Tests!!

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No visit of this importance would be complete without a meeting with all the local key players and
this was no exception. This meeting was also attended by all the local dignitaries, so it is clear what
a high value is put on the CITC projects. The meeting was also attended by the two CITC sponsored
teachers (Lhamu Sherpa and Aruna Kulung Rai) – Lhamu had recently visited schools in the UK as
part of her professional development. Another aspect of the CITC challenge became clear during
this meeting. When asked what difference the building project would make, all of the local leaders
and the principal spoke in terms of great facilities. However, even when prompted, did not have a
clear vision on what impact it would have in terms of the difference seen in the children. Typical
responses would be that they are happier rather than their learning develops more quickly, or they
become more curious. A challenge that will only be overcome through the charities
representatives, both UK and Nepali, role modelling that thinking.

The other real positive seen at this school was the impact that having fresh water supplied to the
school from the CITC filtration system is making. Every water fountain or tap was almost
continuously in use by the children.




















Students Washing Hands
















Clean Water is a Treat!

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The Walk Back to Lukla

The next two days were spent making our way back to Lukla giving an opportunity to take in more of
the fantastic scenery. I would love to say leisurely but as the first of the two days consisted of
500m altitude increase, an 1100m decrease, a 1300m increase and finished with a 400m descent my
legs said otherwise. Day two was not much easier but we had some spectacular views of the school
at Kharikhola and of the Dudh Khosi valley.


















Shree Kharikhola from the walk back to Lukla

Chatting to Mike en route I also discovered some of the other activities that the charity support.
There is a lot of teacher training taking place with particular emphasis on how young minds develop
and how they learn best at each of the development stages. I think that this is a stand out
programme of work and on the school visits you could see clear differences in the classes of teachers
who have benefitted from it. There is also much work supporting menstrual health and how to
enable the girls to have higher levels of attendance at school. The positive impact of this work was
commented upon by a large number of the female teachers as we visited the schools and I
understand that Girl Guides who delivered the training in Lukla were almost overwhelmed by the
numbers attending.



.












One of the many spectacular views

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Lukla

With the visit, unfortunately, drawing to a close we visited three of the schools in the Lukla area.
The first was Shree Lukla where CITC have provided 2 Classes and a library and sponsor 2 teachers
(Phura Jangmi Sherpa and Chhiring Tamang). I saw some real contrasts here between teachers who
were CITC sponsored and those who weren’t. Pictures tell a thousand words and I will let you guess
which teacher is sponsored by CITC.





This class was being
taught by the male
teacher aggressively
hitting the board with
a stick and making the
children chant the
words. It felt an
intimidating
environment to learn
in.








The atmosphere was
very different in the
CITC class.

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Next we visited the Himalayan
Boarding school which is a school
created by Dawa, the inspiration
behind Classrooms in the Clouds. CITC
sponsor one teacher at this school
(Dawa Yangji Sherpa) but Dawa’s
influence can be seen in the way the
children are taught in all the classes. A
typical classroom scene in the photo.

The final school visit was to the large
the local higher secondary school The Himalayan English Boarding School
Shree Charikharka. Though not supported by CITC, we went
there for two reasons. Firstly the CITC engineer, Sonam Sherpa, was overseeing the construction
and it was great to finally meet up with him. The construction here was required because the
earthquake had all but destroyed the original school. This was a massive project as can be seen in
the photo below, but of interest to us
was that it was using a different
building methodology. More of a
steel frame construction than the
CITC favoured, concrete build and it
was an opportunity to make a
comparison. After a chat with the
project engineering team we realised
that the costs here were similar to a
concrete build and Mike and I both
felt we believed the concrete method
to be superior.

Just one of at least three buildings being constructed here


The other aspect that made this day
very special for me was that we were
accompanied by Mingma, now an
educational support worker for CITC
and the inspiration for me being
involved in the charity. It was great to
catch up again, also meeting her Mum
and toddler Chhenzum.





Chhenzum,Mingma and Mum

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Reflections on my visit
Firstly I would like to say a massive thank you to Mike and Samden for allowing me to join them for a
really enjoyable couple of weeks in the mountains. They were fantastic company and it was a great
opportunity to see the charity at work.

The key thing that I learnt on this visit is that the money I am donating is being very well spent. The
impression I got was that a number of other charities will build the classrooms and then leave it at
that as a completed job. What I saw as being different with CITC is that they focus much more on
what is happening within the classroom and the impact that it has on the children’s learning. This
ranges from the specialist training the teachers receive, to the type of visit that I had just witnessed.
These visits keep the pressure on the schools to maximise the potential of the buildings and the
sponsored teachers in delivering a better educational outcome.

Money is not distributed without thought, schools must show that they are receptive to the
philosophy of the charity before a partnership is entered into. Hopefully the impact of this
philosophy will encourage other schools to change and then give CITC much more of a headache
over who to sponsor. Money spent on building projects is clearly being spent on top quality
facilities that will have a long lifetime and, importantly, be resistant to any future earthquakes.
Again an example of this drive for quality is on their insistence that building work is completed by
their own trusted building team.
As a father of two daughters who are both engineers, it was really encouraging to see the emphasis
on female teachers and female education. They have selected some inspirational female teachers
who are clearly role models showing that it is possible to remain in education and that there can be
fulfilling work at the end of it. The other very positive element here is the work that has been done
to improve menstrual health education. It was clearly very popular and is making a difference.
This combined with the excellent toilet facilities that have been provided is ensuring that girls have
every opportunity to complete their education.

Last but not least is the provision of clean drinking water at many schools. Critical in preventing
many illnesses, particularly in the rainy season when there is a lot of sediment in the main water
sources. I do not think I visited a single school where the taps were not continuously in use.
So, in summary, this is a fantastic charity that is not only providing facilities but also rigorously
following up to ensure that the maximum potential is being made of them. This is Nepal and those
of you who have been there will
know that the bureaucracy of the
country can be intensely frustrating
at times and it would have Mike
tearing his hair out at times!

Everybody involved should take
great pride on what is being
achieved.
I have come away firmly believing
that my donations are making a real
difference.

Dave Thomas
The Author Relaxing Above Waku