WESTBURY Rotary Club is helping to rebuild a school in Nepal , after an earthquake destroyed 475 of the 545 schools, by declaring the school as one of the club’s chosen charities this year.
The 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Nepal in 2015 destroyed schools in the remote Sindhupalchok district. Surviving children are now trying to learn in temporary education centres, which are often little more that open shelters. These are hardly adequate for the extreme weather conditions of the remote, high altitude region.
One of Rotary District ‘s 1,200 projects this year is to help rebuild the Shree Saraswoti Basic School, with a target cost of £64,000. The UK coordinator of the project and president of the Rotary Club of Yeovil, Dr Michael Fernando, visited the Rotary Club of Westbury along with Rotarians Luke Simon, founder of the ‘School in a Bag’ initiative, and Caroline Ansell, to talk about the need, the plans and the progress.
The rebuild will involve constructing a six classroom, two-story frame structure to earthquake-proof standards, using local materials and labour, and hence creating training, work opportunities and ownership in the locality. The school already has the land, the design has been approved by the Nepalese authorities, so work can progress as soon as the cost of the materials has been raised. The project is being managed on site by a very enthusiastic and capable Nepalese Rotarian.
Westbury Rotary president, David Perkins, has declared the Shree Saraswoti School as one of the club’s chosen charities for this Rotary year, and presented a cheque for £2,400 from the proceeds of various Rotary events. The donation will attract significant matchfunding from both Rotary District 1200 and Rotary International.
See the Westbury Rotary website for further details of the appeal.
