Namaste, Friends and Supporters of dZi,

I have returned to Kathmandu having been on the trail for the last twelve days, after having trekked into the regions of Khotang and lower Solu Khumbu. Ben Ayres, our Nepal project coordinator, has been moving the Appreciative Community Development (ACD) projects rapidly forward. Ben has worked in Nepal for the last eight years and speaks fluent Nepali; we are fortunate to have him on the dZi team. With his help, we are helping thousands in these extremely remote regions of Nepal.

It is hard to describe how remote and rugged these areas of eastern Nepal are. To reach our project area from the nearest dirt runway airport takes four full days walking an average of eight to ten hours a day. The nearest paved road is a full week’s walk away. The terrain is so steep that the locals say when walking uphill “if you fall over the first thing that hits the ground is your nose.” There are no roads passable by motor vehicles, no health clinics, no hospitals, and no electricity. The trek was like walking in and out of the Grand Canyon everyday, and about that hot.

On this trip, we visited seven schools that dZi has funded in the last seven months through the ACD project. Three have been completed and four are in full swing. The reception from village to village was amazing and the immense gratitude from the local people has made this the most rewarding trip I have ever been on in all my Nepal journeys. The ACD project has almost limitless potential to serve the people of these most remote regions of Eastern Nepal, and we intend to act on that need. (Top photo is of the Narkhel School under construction in the Khotang District.)

The bottom photo is Ben and I being honored at a school reception in the village of Sotang. We will be funding a new primary school in Sotang for 400 children this fall.

We will be expanding upon a model developed and tested in the field by dZi Nepal Project Coordinator, Ben Ayers. This model uses an appreciative approach to development – where community members and dZi facilitators are encouraged to discover the root cause of success in their villages, and use previous community accomplishments as a springboard for new ideas and dreams.

Please click on this link to see a comprehensive overview of the Appreciative Community Development Project.

All the best.

Jim Nowak
Executive Director

Taksindu Social Welfare and Karma Sherpa

In the April newsletter, I told the story of Karma Sherpa who Kim and I paid for his college education at Kathmandu University. He was the Sirdar or leader of the above-mentioned trek into eastern Nepal.

Karma is now president of the Taksindu Social Welfare Council (TSW), and is in charge of building the new primary school in Chhulemu (with dZi Funding). TSW and the local community have set a shining example of how we want our schools to be constructed.

The construction foreman began the foundation for the school by digging the first corner five feet deep – he instructed everyone in the community that it had to be as deep as he was tall. The foundation was made up of broken and tightly stacked rocks from the old school creating a “rubble trench” foundation. There were thirty-four piels of rock (a piel is the equivalent of a large palate). The granite cornerstones were hand-chiseled into large, square slates, so the corners would remain stable for years to come. Some of the slates were three feet long, two feet wide and six to eight inches thick.

The lumber was donated from the local community forest – hand-milled in the jungle and carried on someone’s back to the school site. Each board was then hand-planed flat and square before being used in the windows, doorframes, or the interior floors. Over-sized windows were built into the school to provide better light for the children. A crawl space with airflow was also installed so the wood floors would not rot out over time, an issue we have seen in the past. The metal roof was carried in from the closest road in Jiri, a ten-day round trip.

After all was said and done, we ended up with an exceptional school built by the community rather than a local builder. With the dZi financial investment of $5,000, Chhulemu now has a primary school that will last at least 50 years, and which, over the years, will provide a place in which to educate thousands of Chhulemu children.

We are extremely proud of Karma and what he and his community have accomplished. A relatively small capital investment will result in continuing benefits for years to come. It is this type of project that the dZi foundation will continue to support.

The Second dZi DVD: Coming This Fall.

Through the generous underwriting of a longtime dZi donor, we are fortunate to be able to produce our second DVD. Dave O’Leske and Jeff Winger from Through a Childs Eyes productions are traveling with me this spring and capturing the necessary footage. We are focusing on our amazing staff and a number of our new initiatives for this next film. We will show our Water and Sanitation projects in Ladakh, Appreciative Community Development in Nepal and Primary Education sponsorship in Sikkim. If you missed the first DVD we produced 3 years ago, not to worry. This upcoming DVD will have the first edition plus additional indexed video clips on current projects not covered in either edition.

If you have never received a mailing from dZi and want to receive our new DVD please go to our web- site: www.dzifoundation.org. Please fill out the REQUEST INFORMATION FORM and we will make sure you receive our fall mailing, this coming October.