Our journey began back in 2008 when Founding Directors, Fionna, Durga and their children travelled to Nepal determined to set up an Early Childhood Development Centre (ECD) so that children would have access to quality early years education that Durga, who was raised in Nepal had not had. Little had changed in rural Nepal, since Durga was a boy and every school the family visited seemed to be in various stages of disrepair. The village of Sangachok Nursery had been selected as it was in an area that Durga knew well and there was reasonable road access.
Enough money had been raised to build a purpose built early childhood centre and whilst it was under construction, temporary classes commenced in the school. There were no kindergarten facilities and young children were sitting bored in dark dirty classrooms with absent teachers who knew very little if anything about modern teaching methods.
The first ECD class had just three children. The borrowed classroom was so filthy that Fionna and Durga had to attack the thick dust with brooms before they could do anything else. The children were not used to playing and it took time for them to respond to action songs, games and the fun activities that most children love. Soon, however, more and more children arrived at the door wanting to join in. Parents were peering through windows eager to see what was going on. Within a week, we had a class full of happy under 5’s playing, laughing and exploring the new learning materials.
Our purpose built ECD was soon ready and the children moved into the spacious light and airy new classrooms. The ECD became a model for the area until sadly the building was seriously damaged in the 2015 Nepal earthquake. However, even this big earthquake did not deter the children of the village from wanting to learn. In fact, attendance rose when families who had become homeless dropped their children at our temporary learning centres during the day so that they could be safe and well looked after.
Since the earthquake, FSH has built new earthquake resilient ECD classrooms with the help of Court Construction, our Kiwi building supporters. There is a separate circular building for the play group too which attracts 2 year olds and their parents.
When Director, Fionna Heiton arrived at Sangachok on a monitoring visit in May last year, she could not believe her eyes. The ECD was full of happy children who were fully engaged in activities they had chosen themselves. The room was calm, quiet, bright and orderly. Children and teachers alike were using respectful language. It was Fionna’s dream come true. We had done it!
The vision had been simple, quality early childhood education for children in this charming rural Nepali village. However, since First Steps Himalaya was founded back in 2008, more villages had requested our services. Not only have we provided quality early years education in one village but in 25 villages in 3 districts of Nepal. But that’s another story!
Read more about our story here!
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