News Update Bhaktapur Self-sustaining Children home
The children have just left for school on the bus, Riya and one of the mothers are out looking at different rice-hay as we need to buy some for the cows ... and I have a few minutes here to write a few sentences and updates.
It seems as if another evolution has occurred here at Sidapol, leaving an overall feeling of maturity, harmony and depth. We now have two new live-in mothers to be a support for Jamnua. Parvati came from Pokhara and Moiya from the village of Rupak's mother. Plus we have Devi who comes by during the day each day to help with daily tasks. With twenty children and the farm, they have plenty of work to keep them occupied! We have asked that the mothers all give a long-term commitment so we are not changing all the time and we can co-create a place of stability and security for the children.
We have three new children, one girl Durga (11yrs) and brothers Rohan (4yrs) and his brother Rahl (7yrs), the boys are the sons of Moyia the new mother who joined us since May.
Riya has been implementing some helpful concepts into the home 'learn by helping' is one, which gives children the encouragement to help in the domestic tasks and learn as they do. Another helpful one is 'if we are clean we don't get disease', which is reminding the children to both clean themselves and their environment. The girls are doing much better at this, although the boys are much improved!
Current developments:
Our organic farm has been continuing to develop. The vegetable production was not as good as we hoped the last months due to an excessively wet monsoon period, however as the season has now changed we hope to have a better next season. Additionally, we now have two cows, which with our buffalo, give good compost to replenish our soil. The cows are providing 17+ liters of milk each day, enough for all our children to have milk twice a day, plus selling the excess, giving small cash income for day-to-day needs. Our local chickens are sturdy and healthy providing eggs every day plus some excess for sales. And the male ones are being used for eating for the children, who like meat (some of our children choose to be vegetarian and we allow their own choice). We have downscaled the goat farm idea, as it was too complicated in the end being too far, and have brought the goats closer to home and have made some profit on selling our male goats in the festival season.
In other developments, Riya has extended the dining area outside, with a roof and enclosure, which gives us more space for eating and cooking. Plus she has extended the animal house a little giving a porch to protect the cows and the feed supply as well as making the chicken coop more secure.