Team Members | Team Members |
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Volunteers and Team Members The Madhav Ghimire Foundation is supported solely through the generosity and effort of volunteers who devote their time to raising money for the children, as well as establishing ongoing relationships with the children, their families, and teachers. Each year, a team of professionals, students, and others who are interested in our cause, visit each of the villages where we are currently supporting girls. In addition to participating in ceremonies at the schools to honor the scholarship recipients, team members visit the homes of each child, consult with teachers, and conduct workshops for educators and health professionals. As you will read in some of their comments, team members are often transformed by their work with the children in ways that are both profound and powerful.
Rachel Bishop, a graduate student and volunteer, mentors one of the scholarship girls during a walk to her home to meet the family and neighbors. Heather Guay, Director of Volunteers for The Madhav Ghimire Foundation
Heather with some of the teachers in Bandipur~ Aug.2009 Working to provide scholarships and to improve education for the children in Nepal has been a life changing endeavor for me. I first visited Nepal in December of 2007 with Jeffrey and a group of wonderful people and since that time I have had a passion for raising awareness and finding ways to help improve literacy and education in this beautiful land. I spent nine weeks this summer teaching English, working with teachers and students, and mentoring our scholarship girls in Bandipur. The Nepalese people value education and for those who are lucky enough to attend school, they do not take it for granted. As a teacher and a counselor I am amazed by the spirit and enthusiasm of our scholarship girls~ they are so eager to learn. They attended "class" each day for two hours, after they had already finished their morning chores of cutting grass, feeding the animals, and preparing food for their families. Some of the girls walked for two hours each way in order to attend, and those girls never missed a day! The scholarships that the MGF provide change lives~ and in some situations it is fair to say, the scholarships literally SAVE lives! Thanks for supporting the children of Nepal~ every little bit helps, every little bit makes a difference. Together we can make a huge difference in the lives of so many needy and neglected children. Marie Houge, a Norwegian student who volunteered to teach English:
The children have been a part of a forgotten people for many generations. They have been the poorest, with few opportunities, and have been treated like animals. Fortunately, their situation can—and will—change with help and support. They need education most of all. This won’t happen overnight but through small, incremental steps. This education will help the children and their families feel respected. With help from this foundation it is possible to show the children that they should work hard in school even though they are poor. I hope you will continue your great work for these neglected children in Nepal. Even if one day you ever forget them, they will never forget you and what you have done to give them hope for the future. Cyrus Ellis, a university professor:
There is something about the people that allows them to endure. I think I know what resilience is. I think I understand what it means to be patient but there is something different about these people that I’ve never seen before, nor seen since. That’s one of the things that happens going abroad and working with people from a different culture—discovering unique human qualities. Right now I look at some things I brought home, things that sit in my office—a statue of Buddha, a rock, some Tibetan chimes—and they remind me of the tranquility that I witnessed there. There is something inside them that I haven’t seen in my lifetime, although I’ve heard stories in my family’s folklore that there once was a time when my race had “it,” whatever that is. Hearing about it is one thing, but seeing it is another. Maybe that is a point of connection for me while I was there because I could see the inequitable circumstances of life that they lived with. I could see the things they do to make a dollar, or a rupee. I see young kids working and women bearing a heavy burden and I see men doing what they have to do to make it.Ali Solis, a student volunteer:
After being home for a while, there has not been one day that I haven’t thought about Nepal. It seems that everything I experience and learn now is different because Nepal is always in the back of my mind. I feel like I know something more, like I’m in on a secret. Now, it is only a memory. I have so many mixed emotions about that. Some of the time I cry just thinking about it, because when I was there I felt more alive than I had ever felt before, and it’s tough to not have that light anymore. Other times I smile and experience an overwhelming feeling of happiness. I could not be more grateful for the moments that I had, for the things that took my breath away, and for the people that I met. I experienced the secret, and that was enough for me to never forget. What I am certain of for my life right now in this moment is that I have gone through something extremely special. My mind has been opened so big that it can never go back to the way it was. I think it is really hard for people to think about the world in a way other than what they experience in their everyday lives. What I have experienced will never allow me to do that, and I am forever grateful. To experience another life, to really involve yourself in a new place is so refreshing. It’s like you experience another form of consciousness because you are living through something completely different than you are used to.
Christine Tomasello, a student volunteer:
I am still searching for a way to accurately describe what it was like to watch the young girls receive their scholarships. When it was my turn to give away one of the scholarships, I cried. The little girl was so proud, yet so overcome with all of the attention. She kept hiding her face in her hands, then smiling, then looking away from me. I felt such a connection to her at that moment that it brought me to tears; she seemed overwhelmed with the ceremony, and in that space I think I knew how she felt.At that time, I was still adjusting to everything about the country: the people, the language, the food, the time change... everything. I was on complete sensory overload at that point. It was that little girl’s reaction that snapped me out of some serious culture shock. I could immediately relate to how she acted and felt. In a place so foreign, her reaction was so familiar that it just grounded me. For the first time in my life, I really got a sense of the universality of feelings and emotions.
Mike Marriner, Co-Founder, Road Trip Nation  My life until I went to Nepal with the Foundation had been about finding myself. I’d learned how to unplug from the rest of society, hit the road, explore the world for myself, and define my own path based on my passion. What I learned in Nepal is that that’s not enough. There’s more to life than trying to find yourself, and paving your own road. Certainly that is a critical step, a crucial part of the process, because if I didn’t figure that out I wouldn’t have even been in Nepal in the first place. I would have been locked into some path that had no reflection of what I believe in, stand for, or love most. But the journey does not end there. I learned that my path had to keep going in the direction of helping others. Marsha Wenig, President of YogaKids |
Marsha Wenig teaching a yoga class at the Bamboo School in Bhaktapur