An overview of the project and its goals.
Who?
The project is co-led by Jesse Ezra Shircliff and Aawaz Raj Pokhrel*. Jesse hopes for a career in education, and Aawaz is pursing a PhD of physics at Georgia Tech this fall. The two graduated from Gettysburg College in May 2019.
Jesse and Aawaz have been friends since 2015, when they were placed in the same first-year dorm at Gettysburg College. Aawaz is a native of Pokhara, Nepal, and Jesse visited there in early 2018.
When the Gettysburg College Center for Public Service (CPS) notified students about an opportunity to compete for the Kathryn Davis Projects for Peace grant (read more here), Jesse immediately reached out to Aawaz. Aawaz had built up several libraries for rural high schools in Nepal. They proposed a similar project in January, and CPS later nominated their team, which was selected by Davis Projects for Peace in April.
What?
Our goal is to enhance educational infrastructure and resources in Oraste-Syangja Nepal during the summer of 2019. We are collaborating with principals and teachers of two schools and local businesses owners to identify the best way to use our money, time, and labor-power.
The project includes multiple elements:
- Collect books and provide computers to the schools
- Establish a scholarship fund for especially needy students
- Provide workshops for teachers on key topics, like computer use or language
- Document the project online, and pass this blog onto our partners, meaning eventually, you’ll read their updates
Where? The projects takes place at two high schools in Oraste, which is a Village Development Committee or VDC (the smallest administrative unit in Nepal) in the Syangja district, which is ~10km south of the city Pokhara. The schools are named Bhabishay Nirmard Mabi (BNM) and Khurdi Aadarbut Vidhyalaya (KAV). BNM and KAV teach grades 1-12 and K-8 respectively. These schools are often accessed on foot.
How? The key to this project is that we hear the voice of our partners. All too often, charity, philanthropy, and volunteer projects abroad are structured to benefit of volun-tourists. To avoid that, the first phase of our project includes interviewing our partners in Oraste (pictured above) and making visits to their high schools to collect data and tailor our activity to their needs. By listening to the voice of the participants, we can turn this project into a rooted and long-lasting relationship.
Why?
We elected to assist BNM and KAV because Aawaz’s father was raised there and once taught at BNM. Assisting these two schools is a means to address the issues that Nepal faces at large. Nepal remains one of the least developed nations in the region, facing widespread poverty, a young educational system with unequal accessibility, and the need to improve the quality of educational infrastructure like libraries and informational technologies. To understand the issues that Nepal faces more deeply, you can read this write-up by the ADB (the introductory bits are especially relevant).
Education is a direct investment in human capital and individual capability, yet rural parts of Nepal like Oraste-Syangja typically cannot provide quality educational resources. While most of the surrounding VDCs in Oraste face the same problem, BNM and KAV have larger student bodies than most schools in the surrounding area and are in need of improved educational resources. By enhancing educational infrastructure in Oraste-Syangja, we hope to enable a group of active citizens who can promote change from within Nepal and in this challenged area.
We hope that this effort creates awareness of the conditions in Nepal and sustainable progress for the participating schools.
*Our friend Joshua Robert Wagner will join us for some time. Josh has an interest in international relations and has participated in various globalization projects through CPS at Gettysburg. Josh will begin a PhD of Chemistry at Chicago University this fall.
Education in Oraste-Syangja 