What exactly do you DO all day?!?

A few people have been asking what the heck I'm doing with my life these days.

Fear not inquisitors, I shall explain.

I have been in Pokhara for about three weeks now, and will remain in this corner of the Earth for another two months, working with an organization called Nepal House.

Nepal House is a Canadian-Nepali NGO (we recieved 'charity' status in Canada quite recently actually. Pretty exciting), with two branches to it. Here in Pokhara, Nepal House Kaski is the branch which provides psychological counselling services to children who have been victims of trauma, abuse, neglect, poverty, etc. etc.

Seeing as there was a civil war here in the last 10 years which killed over 17 000 people, there's a fair few traumatized children in need of these services.

Nepal House Kaski is staffed by four Nepalese men and women who have been trained in play and art counselling/therapy.

At home in Vancouver, Nepal House Society is the branch of the organization dedicated to providing funding and education opportunities to the Nepalese people working at NHK.

NHS' primary goal is to 'create capacity in Nepal'. Basically, the idea is to try and avoid a band-aid approach to support; instead of bombing in from Canada and helping out for a few months then leaving again, we come here to train the people who work directly with the children. Counsellors, caregivers, orphanage managers and health care professionals from about 15 different orphanages and children's homes in the Pokhara valley recieve support from NHK/NHS on a regular basis.

As a speech-pathologist, I am here providing the Nepali people with some information on child language development and the process of learning. We are running a series of five-day workshops, centered on various topics of relevance to the caregivers and the work they do out here.

It's amazing, and incredibly challenging. The barriers these children (and their caregivers) face on a daily basis are so far removed from the challenges we face at home. The environments they live in are so different from the child care centers I am used to working with, there are concerns about landslides, lack of electricity, road blocks and strikes which take precedence over concerns like cleanliness of toys (where toys are present) or a child who can't say their 's' sound.

Despite this, the people are all so welcoming and so eager to learn that you are left with no other desire than to hunker down and try to come up ways to teach them new skills within the context of their lives, a million miles removed from the comforts and conveniences of home.


Anybody who is interested, NHS' website is http://www.nepalhousesociety.org/