Thank You - Again!
Wholehearted & warmest THANK YOU – DANKE – DHANYABAD
Many of you receiving this note have written personal messages along with your donation to help us in Nepal. These messages have been so heart warming and are motivating and encouraging me to keep in action, as well as being an inspiration to our many Nepali friends who are helping so much on the ground in response to those most in need. Step by step I hope to reply to you all, however with the amount of communication and coordination I have been doing since 25th April, it has been overwhelming and simply not possible to reply to everyone as of yet.
I am slowly, with the help of some amazingly helpful friends, getting systems into place that can be of practical support with regard to communications, especially so that I can send out regular updates about what Hands-with-Hands is facilitating in response to this massive earthquake.
What is happening:
The April 25th Earthquake has activated our entire collaborative network (both in Nepal & internationally) into action for the immediate emergency relief of providing essential shelter, food, medical services and basic communication support . Our help is already arriving to those who need it. It has been incredibly heart warming to get the news reports back from our friends in the field and to see the smiles and gratefulness of the recipients.
Additionally we are already active in the next step of support; organising shelters to serve as temporary school rooms and health provision facilities. And, for our Bhaktapur Children Home in Sipadol (where I was during the initial earthquake), we are collaborating with More-Than-Shelters (www.morethanshelters.org) who supply eco-friendly shelters that, after their temporary use, can be reused to build safe housing. Additionally we are supporting local Nepali eco building company/research facility, Abari centre (www.abari.org ). The upgrade to their equipment will facilitate renewable earthquake friendly rebuilding; there are hundreds of thousands of replacement buildings required.
How can you continue to help?
Many of you have expressed a wish to help in some way - thank-you- simply you saying this is indeed already a help! It reminds me of our innate humanity and natural compassionate impulse for helping one another! I think that although this is a truly heart wrenching crisis for many, it also has a gift- that of bringing many people together and potentially creating something better out of this situation, something that we cannot yet fully imagine.
Many people are coming up with wonderful ideas to raise funds -excellent- we will need a continual flow of funds for quite some time to help with our outreach. I will be uploading the public events on our HwH website; let people know, encourage friends, family & strangers to think of the people in Nepal.
I am slowly collating various ways people can volunteer their time and energy, either in helping HwH or in Nepal directly. Please keep checking our website for updates.
For now I wish to once again say a huge heartfelt thank you! Your support in not only helping financially but also, for our many Nepali friends knowing that we are here in support, is giving them renewed energy to continue helping others.