What is
particular about Phugmoche?
Phugmoche is a boarding
school for the children of the Sherpa farmers. It lodges and feeds 70
children. About 35 day scholars from the neighbouring settlements attend
school. Together with the boarders they receive a snack at lunch time.
Altogether there are 105 children who go to school in Phugmoche. Besides
teaching all the subjects of the Nepalese curriculum, Phugmoche School also
preserves the Sherpa traditions based on Buddhist religion which the
ancestors of the Sherpa once brought from eastern Tibet. This includes that
the children learn to speak and write their mother tongue, the Sherpa
language. The national language in the multi-ethnic state of Nepal is Nepali
which is related to northern Indian Hindi.
How did Phugmoche come into being?
From 1990 to 1992
the school was built by Lama Ngawang Jinpa with the financial help of Freunde
Nepals (Friends of Nepal), Munich in Germany. The
association supported Phugmoche until 2004. From the planning phase on the
project was cared for and looked after by Anneliese
Dietrich. In August 2004 a group of friends of Phugmoche's
founded the Phugmoche-Nepal Association. In the
meantime four further buildings were added to the two original houses.
Beneath the ice capped peaks of the Himalaya, a small school and development
centre has come into being.
How has Phugmoche developed?
Phugmoche offers
education from class 1 to 8. We help our students to obtain the School
Leaving Certificate after class 10 in another school. Most of the boys and
girls, having left Phugmoche, still need our care. They often come from a
very poor family background and cannot expect any support from their parents.
Many of our children are orphans, some do not even
know their fathers or mothers and had to earn their living as child servants.
We give priority to those children. Almost all parents of our children are
illiterate. Until recently the yak herders used to take their sons and
daughters up to the high pastures as helpers. Today they are among our best
students. Boys also have the opportunity of opting for the religious
vocation. For those young men we offer 23 school places at Phugmoche. The
other 47 to 50 places are reserved for children attending the 'regular
school' for general education. Only ten years ago, girls' education was not
regarded as necessary. Today, 50 % of our students are girls.
Our healthcare
has saved some of our children's lives. Tsering
and Cheji were diagnosed as having tuberculosis in
an advanced stage. They had to undergo an eight months' treatment, now they
are in good health. An overlooked middle ear infection caused the
inflammation of Sonam's scull bone. A 'last minute'
operation and a full year's therapy turned the twelve-year-old boy into a
happy and healthy child. Sonam Dolkar,
a fifteen-year-old girl, received an artificial heart valve and
thirteen-year-old Pasang was lucky to be operated
in time otherwise his leg would have had to be amputated. Lhakpa
Doma had a high fever. We took her to Kathmandu
were she was diagnosed as suffering from a serious pneumonia. Her lungs were
drained in the Intensive Care Unit. She could be cured and go back to
Phugmoche.
The Micro Hydro Power Station
was inaugurated in April 2005. Since 1998 the German technical aid (gtz) and the Danish development agency (Danida) had helped us to plan building an electrical
power station (35 to 40 KW). Now we mainly cook by electricity thus saving
the natural woodland on the surrounding slopes. We are trying to found
cottage industries in order to counter migration into the city. A paper
manufacturing plant has just taken up its production using machines which are
run by our electricity. The proud owner is a former student of Phugmoche's.
We finance Phugmoche
by donations. 2000 Rupees monthly (about 20 € or 25 US $) or more are
needed to send a child to school in Phugmoche: that includes teaching, board
and lodgings and in some cases even clothing. The families are not in a
position to afford to send their children to a boarding school. The school
needs a minimum of 20,000 Euro yearly. We collect the financial means by
sponsorships (20 € per month), but only additional donations can fill the
budget and guarantee the existence of the school. We have to maintain the
buildings (giving new roofs for instance, painting doors and windows, we have
to replace furniture, buy bed cloths, soap etc.). We need help for
modernising toilets, showers and clarification basins. Books and other
teaching materials add to the running costs.
Would
you like to help us?
|
Our contact address is:
|
Phugmoche-Nepal
e.V.
Anneliese
Dietrich
Schweinedeich
21
D-25761 Büsum
Germany
|
|
The
telephone number is:
and
our e-mail address is:
|
0049-4834-2668
dietrich-buesum@t-online.de
|
|
Our bank details are:
account number:
bank code:
|
Phugmoche-Nepal
e.V.
150122201
at Sparkasse Westholstein,
BLZ
222 500 20
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The international
bank codes are:
IBAN: DE07
2225 0020 0150 1222 01
BIC: NOLADE21WHO
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