25th April 2015 is a date no Nepali will ever forget; the day the first of a series of earthquakes devastated the country; tragically over 9,000 Nepalese lost their lives and millions lost their homes and livelihoods. Every day since I have witnessed the communities I have been welcomed into rebuild their lives with an enormous resolve and determination, as well as the admirable outpouring of help from governments and charities around the world.
With a New Year looming my wife Jude and I have reflected on in the year gone, and I thought it fitting to share some of the individuals who have really stood out this year. Behold, my Christmas Champions.
Jessica Stanford
It’s been a privilege working alongside fellow VSO volunteer Jessica Stanford. Immediately after the earthquake struck Jessica changed her volunteering role from bio gas engineer to join a team coordinating the disaster response in one of the hardest hit districts in the country: Sindhupalchowk District.
Jessica in the tent she called home
Without complaint she then spent three months living in a tent and working tirelessly to ensure that international relief resources went to the right places and duplications across charities were avoided. Both my wife Jude and I helped Jessica by completing a ten day trek in our region of Lamjung to ascertain the rural schools and communities that really needed immediate help, which you can read about in my June blog.
Jessica has coordinated efforts across VSO and the charity sector with incredible professionalism; and she’s just 34. Recently the time came when Jessica could have gone back to her former placement as bio gas engineer; instead she has continued coordinating recovery efforts in a district so badly damaged that it will take years. In her own words; “I’m in Nepal for the long haul and I wouldn’t be anywhere else in the world right now.”
Kim West
Jude and I have been asked many a time by friends and family ‘how did we cope’ when the earthquakes struck? Whilst trying to formulate an answer to this, one of the first people that comes to mind is Kim West, the VSO Country Director for Nepal. She had been in her post for mere months before the earthquake.
Kim with some of our youth volunteers
Kim has had to struggle with all the challenges of re-orientating programme work to include an earthquake response, which has been scaled up massively by the enormous generosity from the disaster appeal VSO coordinated by the UK office. At the same time Kim has always had the wellbeing of her volunteers (which at the time included teams of our youth volunteers) and staff at the forefront of her work; the majority of Nepali staff were living in tents for months too.
For us as volunteers, being able to cope with the situation has been made much easier by Kim’s leadership and compassion.
Farmers such as Ram Prasad
Back in January, on a field visit gathering information on Nepal’s milk producers, I met farmers like Ram. The farmers felt after years of turmoil in the industry, the demand for milk and dairy products was on the up.
Ram with his livestock
At the time, it was predicted that just under half a million Nepalese were relying on dairy farming for their income. Now, the headline is milk production has dropped by a staggering 50%, as there has been a crippling fuel shortage in the country on top of the earthquakes. My number one priority at the beginning of 2016 is to continue improving raw milk and finished product quality in order to build up the dairy farming community’s income once more.
These dairy farmers and others like them are all my champions. They seem to have huge reserves of personal and community resilience, far beyond anything I have previously experienced. They soldier on creating solutions to the most intractable problems on an almost daily basis. “Can’t get my products to market because I can’t get fuel - just pop them on the bus.” “Nobody to take my pigs to slaughter - we’ll just walk them there!” (anybody who has tried walking pigs anywhere knows how difficult that task is!)
The champion of all Christmas champions: my wife Judith
In truth the championship has not really changed as we enter the final phase of our placement. My greatest hero and champion is still my wife Jude.
At the start of the year my work took me back to Kathmandu, which has meant us living apart. Since the earthquake the programme on which she works has been used to deliver support to ruined schools and damaged lives in Lamjung. Never daunted she has had to get involved in tasks as diverse as sourcing building supplies, delivering menstrual awareness training, facilitating training through drama and walking up to 10 hours a day to check on school buildings…..to name but a few.
When together I will admit that our conversation sometimes drifts to what life will be like when we return to the UK in mid-2016. As you would expect she has remained solidly defiant and stoical throughout the past year using every challenge to use another set of her skills to overcome the particular adversity. She is my champion of Christmas Champions.
Merry Christmas
Becoming a VSO volunteer during this tough time for Nepal has certainly been a challenge, but reflecting back on this year I have undoubtedly gained so much. With your wonderful support of VSO, I have been given the privilege of working alongside teams and individuals who have all created opportunities for me to use my skills as a dairy farmer to help. The name of my project is “Samarth”, which in Nepali means ‘making someone able’; I feel this sums up the aim of my volunteering perfectly, and I am determined to make 2016 even more of the same.
Thank you so much,
Simon
