Kathmandu: Ten volunteers sent by ‘Bangalore Cares for Nepal’ to Nepal for relief and rehabilitation work engaged in building temporary structure for the earthquake victims on the first day May 26. They will be involved in directly providing the essential supplies to the affected people in the villages during their month long voluntary services.
The ten volunteers comprise of 4 from Karnataka (Fr George Kannanthanam, Fr Vincent Kiran, Rony Jose and Samuel Irrigo), 4 from Kerala (Chacko, Sr Nygil, Sr Deepthi and Sr Agnes) and 2 from Andhra Pradesh (Rajasekhar and Sunil). They will be involved in the relief work for month. The volunteers will also work along with CARITAS, NEPAL, in the District offices. The volunteers started their journey together from Bangalore at 6 am flight to Delhi and took the Delhi – Kathmandu flight at 1 pm to reach Kathmandu at 2.30 pm on 26 th of May. Fr George Kannnathanam and Fr Vincent Kiran are leading the team.
Bangalore cares for Nepal has adopted 1000 families for relief and rehabilitation in Nepal. They are from five villages, most of them outside the city of Kathmandu. Food and medicines have been already provided to these families. Tarpaulins have been given to more than 2500 families. The volunteers also distributed tarpaulins to the leprosy affected persons on May 26. A colony where leprosy affected persons are living called Budaneelakanda is one of the places taken for work. There are 50 families living there. All the houses are lost. The group spent the first day of work building tin roof houses for the colony. They will build all the fifty houses during the next one week.
The most challenging work is to provide them shelter before the onset of rains which is imminent. Corrugated tin sheets are used to create shelters for them with a span of 12/10 feet. Each house will cost Rs 10,000 with the labour supplied by the beneficiaries and volunteers. Already 25 shelters are made as models in different villages.
Bangalore Cares for Nepal has several agencies working together. Project Vision is the coordinating agency. Ysmen Club, Sumanahalli, ECHO, Claretians, SJt Sisters, Indian Development Foundation, etc are part of the team. Many international funding agencies lie Manos Unidas, Proclade, AIFO, Reach to Teach etc are supporting the efforts financially.
Bangalore cares for Nepal has designed a program called ‘Back to the School’ to help the children to get back to the school. This is by providing them a school kit with all required materials for them. One kit will cost Rs 1000. A permanent housing program is also planned at a cost of Rs 200,000. The Rotary international will provide a 200% global matching grant for the money raised locally. Each house will be a 250 square ft house with a living room, kitchen and bath. The houses will be built in the name of the donor.
Find details in www.bangalorecaresfornepal.org