Hey! We are Freja (23), Luise (25), and Emma (20), and at the moment we are doing our internship with DIB and their partner organization Children-Nepal. We study Catastrophe and Risk Management at Københavns Professionshøjskole, where we are currently enrolled in the 4th semester.
Children-Nepal is based in Pokhara, a beautiful town with a wonderful sight over the Himalayas and with a lot of nature to experience. The weather in Pokhara is generally sunny, and temperatures in March are fixed around 20-25 degrees. Our first impression of the Nepalese population is that they are extremely helpful and curious, and we have been welcomed enthusiastically at the office of Children-Nepal. We are extremely happy about the personnel at Children-Nepal, and we are currently living with the director of Children-Nepal, Dilly, and his wife Laxmi, who also works for the organization.
Food for Thought Project
Within the context of the DIB and Children-Nepal's project “Food for Thought” (FFT), we have joined some monitoring visits in the schools. This is usually carried out with Dumanath and Ajita, two of the employees at Children-Nepal. We usually take the bus from Zero Point, in the middle of Pokhara. It often takes at least two hours to arrive at the locations where the schools are placed. In addition, many of the schools and villages are located far away from the main road, so we often have to walk at least 40 minutes to reach the schools. For some specific visits it has taken almost three hours of walking to reach the schools.
During our first visit, after almost three hours of walking, we got the chance to see the enthusiasm of the kids in relation to the project. The students are responsible for taking care of small vegetable gardens in the school premises. It almost comes to small fights to get the chance to water the plants and plant new ones, and it was amazing to witness how much fun kids have learning about sustainable farming, which is one of the project’s most crucial points.
In relation to our visits to the schools, Luise and Freja are undertaking a major fieldwork, where they examine the understanding of students, parents, and teachers on climate change, investigating which kind of natural catastrophe they are most worried about. Moreover, they are investigating whether people feel properly equipped should they be affected by potential catastrophes and what they would do to protect their family in that scenario.
In addition, Freja and Emma held lectures for 10-12th grade students from Children-Nepal’s school program. The kids got lectures on climate change, what challenges it implies, and what preventive measures can be taken to avoid climate-related catastrophes.
Forum teater og gedekid
Moreover, we have already joined trainings at Fulbari Resource Centre, which is Children-Nepal’s external building, where there is space for 60 people to sleep and eat. In this context, the “Forum Theater” is performed with school kids, to help them communicate their feelings and intervene in high-tension situations (i.e. at home). Emma stayed over at Fulbari with the kids, and got the chance to experience a different cultural context, while their fieldwork called Luise and Freja back to Pokhara. We also got the chance to meet Fulbari’s newest residents: baby goats, who had a great appetite for shoe laces and overalls.
However we also have some time to spare, and we managed to see some of Pokhara’s sites. We have been sailing on Pokhara’s Phewa Lake and saw the sunrise over the Himalayas. Our last experience has been a walking trip to visit Peace Stupa and Lord Shiva statue.
The internship ends in June.
Read more about DIB’s work in Nepal here: https://www.dib.dk/projekter/nepal/
WAUW !