Other news: A busy two months
It's been a full two months since our last post. Progress has been made in several directions:
Conversation with Kevin Sites
Kevin Sites and I were finally able to talk about what we hoped to accomplish for Yubaraj, and he repeated his support for this effort and their offer to tell the HotZone audience about us. We're writing a summary of what we've done since reading "Street Dance" last May, and hope to have our story shared on the Yahoo! HotZone website within a few weeks. Many thanks to Kevin and his producers for taking an interest in this project!
Matching funds from GiveMeaning.com
During the past month GiveMeaning.com offered a $.50 match for every $1.00 donation for a maximum matching contribution of $200. It didn't take long, after telling friends and family about this offer, for that maximum to be reached. Many thanks to all who responded to our request for donations and to GiveMeaning for contributing their dollars and momentum-building match to our project!
Donations update
As you can read in the first post above, we've received over $1,100 for Yubaraj. I'm thrilled with this amount -- already, we'll be able to accomplish so much for him! -- and am confident that we're well on our way to collecting the $7,700 we'll need to support his high school education. The next school year in Nepal will begin in April, and we only need $6,600 by then to enroll Yubaraj at the Insight Vision School at the start of the school year.
Supporting Yubaraj between now and April
Like so many others in Kathmandu, Yubaraj has been unable to find work since losing his job with the parking operators in August. He has spent much of the past month in Bethan, but has been in touch with Basu on a pretty regular basis. When they met last week, Basu gave him 2,000 rupees (about $25 dollars) to take care of himself and his family for the next month. All of us recognize that giving Yubaraj cash isn't a good solution even for the short term (i.e. the next few months before he enrolls in school). He has alot of time on his hands, and even with some hours dedicating to tutoring (which we'll set up as soon as our donation totals indicate that school enrollment is very likely), it would be best for many reasons for him to be earning whatever financial support we're giving him. With Scott MacLennan's permission, we've asked Sudhir Lama, the director of Mountain Fund's Nepal office, to consider hiring Yubaraj in exchange for supporting Yubaraj's salary with our donations. Sudhir, Basu, Puskar, and Yubaraj have tentatively scheduled a meeting for December 21. He'll interview Yubaraj at that time (they haven't met before) and discuss what Yubaraj's job might be and to work out the payment arrangement. My fingers are crossed that they'll be able to work something out and will post an update here as those decisions are made.
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An additional note to say thank you to all of the people who continue to support this project. I spent yesterday at Heather O'Neal's place in Ann Arbor. As described elsewhere on this blog, she met Yubaraj and our Kathmandu partners in September and has been a huge supporter of what we're doing for Yubaraj. Yesterday her Himalayan Bazaar was open to holiday shoppers and she encouraged me to set up a table there to raise funds for Yubaraj. In exchange for mostly $3-4 items donated by a children's group here in Milford, we received $73 in donations. It was a pretty labor-intensive way to collect those dollars (outdoors on a sunny but cold Michigan December day!) but an absolute joy to talk to so many people about what we were doing, and to be able to tell them that we're well on our way to making such a meaningful difference in the lives of Yubaraj and his family. A surprising number of people had been to Nepal (Ann Arbor is a well-traveled town, apparently) and they could easily picture Yubaraj's life in Bethan and all of the dynamics that led to his leaving school and looking for work in Kathmandu. It was a very rewarding experience to receive such a positive response to what we were doing.
Conversation with Kevin Sites
Kevin Sites and I were finally able to talk about what we hoped to accomplish for Yubaraj, and he repeated his support for this effort and their offer to tell the HotZone audience about us. We're writing a summary of what we've done since reading "Street Dance" last May, and hope to have our story shared on the Yahoo! HotZone website within a few weeks. Many thanks to Kevin and his producers for taking an interest in this project!
Matching funds from GiveMeaning.com
During the past month GiveMeaning.com offered a $.50 match for every $1.00 donation for a maximum matching contribution of $200. It didn't take long, after telling friends and family about this offer, for that maximum to be reached. Many thanks to all who responded to our request for donations and to GiveMeaning for contributing their dollars and momentum-building match to our project!
Donations update
As you can read in the first post above, we've received over $1,100 for Yubaraj. I'm thrilled with this amount -- already, we'll be able to accomplish so much for him! -- and am confident that we're well on our way to collecting the $7,700 we'll need to support his high school education. The next school year in Nepal will begin in April, and we only need $6,600 by then to enroll Yubaraj at the Insight Vision School at the start of the school year.
Supporting Yubaraj between now and April
Like so many others in Kathmandu, Yubaraj has been unable to find work since losing his job with the parking operators in August. He has spent much of the past month in Bethan, but has been in touch with Basu on a pretty regular basis. When they met last week, Basu gave him 2,000 rupees (about $25 dollars) to take care of himself and his family for the next month. All of us recognize that giving Yubaraj cash isn't a good solution even for the short term (i.e. the next few months before he enrolls in school). He has alot of time on his hands, and even with some hours dedicating to tutoring (which we'll set up as soon as our donation totals indicate that school enrollment is very likely), it would be best for many reasons for him to be earning whatever financial support we're giving him. With Scott MacLennan's permission, we've asked Sudhir Lama, the director of Mountain Fund's Nepal office, to consider hiring Yubaraj in exchange for supporting Yubaraj's salary with our donations. Sudhir, Basu, Puskar, and Yubaraj have tentatively scheduled a meeting for December 21. He'll interview Yubaraj at that time (they haven't met before) and discuss what Yubaraj's job might be and to work out the payment arrangement. My fingers are crossed that they'll be able to work something out and will post an update here as those decisions are made.
****************
An additional note to say thank you to all of the people who continue to support this project. I spent yesterday at Heather O'Neal's place in Ann Arbor. As described elsewhere on this blog, she met Yubaraj and our Kathmandu partners in September and has been a huge supporter of what we're doing for Yubaraj. Yesterday her Himalayan Bazaar was open to holiday shoppers and she encouraged me to set up a table there to raise funds for Yubaraj. In exchange for mostly $3-4 items donated by a children's group here in Milford, we received $73 in donations. It was a pretty labor-intensive way to collect those dollars (outdoors on a sunny but cold Michigan December day!) but an absolute joy to talk to so many people about what we were doing, and to be able to tell them that we're well on our way to making such a meaningful difference in the lives of Yubaraj and his family. A surprising number of people had been to Nepal (Ann Arbor is a well-traveled town, apparently) and they could easily picture Yubaraj's life in Bethan and all of the dynamics that led to his leaving school and looking for work in Kathmandu. It was a very rewarding experience to receive such a positive response to what we were doing.
posted by Christine Egger at 1:53 PM
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