Last Spring, BGS Junior School teacher Mrs Dixon spent her sabbatical term in Nepal, visiting two schools with a view to setting up a link with BGS. In the term before she went, the Senior School’s chosen charity was the Pahar Trust Nepal and Mrs Dixon was able to take a cheque for £2,818.44 with her to help provide resources for a Nepalese school.
The money was donated to a school in Thechambu, in the far east of Nepal. This area is very rural, with many of the pupils walking for two hours a day to get to school. The school had very limited resources; pupils spend Friday afternoons cleaning the school in preparation for the week ahead, and IT lessons were given by a teacher writing out instructions on a white board, as the school had no IT equipment at all.
Thanks to the money raised by BGS, the school now has a set of laptops which will make a real difference to teaching and learning for the staff and pupils there. We were delighted to receive the message below from their Headteacher, Padam Bahadur Limbu:
'Thank you for incomparable support from your School, by providing a monetary cheque by Ann Dixon, about (3,50,000 Nepali Rupees) to buy laptops. It has become the greatest opportunity to be familiar with modern information and communication technology to enhance teaching learning achievements for pupils at school. We are very lucky to have these laptops that make our relationship further meaningful in future.'
Mrs Dixon also visited a second school in Nepal – Kalika School at Nagarkot, an area devastated by the 2015 earthquake – who BGS Infants and Juniors are supporting through their fundraising. Pupils in Mrs Dixon’s Year 5 class are also writing to pupils at Kalika School and we are looking forward to continuing to develop our links with them in the future.
If you would like to find out more about Mrs Dixon’s trip to Nepal, Namaste Nepal is planned for next Thursday (4 October) from 5.30pm in The MacKinnon Theatre. As well as photos from the trip being displayed, pupils from BGS Juniors will show off some of the Nepalese dance and music they have learnt during their Nepalese Day at School.
Staff at Thechambu with the laptops