No Child Forgotten

30 July 2018

Dr Anthony Wallersteiner, Headmaster, visited Nepal in July in his capacity as Chair of Street Child. The charity has recently merged with Children in Crisis and is committed to ensuring that no child is forgotten and that all children have access to education. Anthony was accompanied by Street Child’s Founder Patron, The Duchess of York, and Tom Dannatt, the charity’s CEO. 

Street Child has been working in Nepal since the devastating earthquake in April 2015 which destroyed more than 50,000 classrooms and left more than one million children out of education. Street Child, in partnership with UNICEF, has built more than 40 temporary learning centres, distributed educational material to 48,000 children and trained over 300 teachers in disaster risk reduction and essential hygiene practices. 

In 2018 Street Child received DIFID support to reach out to Musahar communities in the Terai region of southern Nepal. The Musahar are the most politically marginalised, economically exploited and socially outcast community in Nepal. The literacy rate is just 3.8% among Musahar women and girls - 100% are out of school after the age of 10. 

Street Child aims to free Musahar communities from bonded labour, support vulnerable women and teach girls basic literacy and numeracy. 

Anthony visited Street Child educational facilities for children of the migrant brick-makers who spend 6 months working in factories outside Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Lalitpur, before returning to their homes in India and South Nepal. 

Anthony travelled to Pokhara, as a guest of Colonel Andrew Mills, CEO of the Kadoorie Agricultural Aid Association. Andrew provided a fascinating overview of KAAA’s infrastructure projects in Nepal while Major Krishna Gurung, Deputy Director of KAAA, showed Anthony round the Kaski Residential Home which is run by the Gurkha Welfare Trust. Major Sandy Nightingale welcomed Anthony to the British Gurkha Camp in Pokhara, the focal point of all Gurkha recruting activities in Nepal and The Gurkha Memorial Museum illustrated the illustrious history of the Brigade of Gurkhas. One of the undoubted highlights of this part of the trip was meeting the legendary Lt. Colonel John Cross who served with Gurkha units for more than 40 years, fighting in Burma, Indo-China, Malaya and Borneo. 

If you are interested in finding out more about Street Child, please visit the website: www.street-child.co.uk