Bupsa Village Water Project
The 2015 earthquake damaged a vital community water system in the rural village of Bupsa on the old Everest Base Camp trail and years of wear, harsh weather, and ongoing deterioration have left it in urgent need of repair. Moving Mountains is now restoring and upgrading the system to provide safe, reliable water for generations to come.
The families in Bupsa have lived with an ever increasingly unreliable water supply, making everyday life more difficult and putting health at risk. By repairing damaged infrastructure and strengthening the system for the future, we’re helping communities secure access to clean water, improving sanitation, providing water for farming and building a greater resilience against future challenges.
Overview
The Bupsa Village Water Project follows a similar model to our successful work in Karila, Rembu, Kinai, and Bumburi. Bupsa is a village in the lower Solukhumbu region of Nepal where we plan to repair and upgrade the existing water system to bring clean, reliable water directly to homes and community collection points.
The total estimated cost for the project is expected to reach £40,000, spread over two years of development and two obvious stages.
The first stage is the heavy work of building eight huge 20,000 litre storage tanks out of concrete high up on the mountain which will have been completed throughout 2027. This stage is extremely hard physical labour, carrying stone from the river 1500′ down in the valley, clearing forest to make the tanks and then laying pipe. We’ve done a number of these projects now, and it involves a lot of local people who volunteer to do this work. The villagers have to work out how to fit this job in around their farming and other work, and it typically takes about 6 to 9 months to complete. It’s also quite dependant on weather so we tend to avoid the winter months of December through to February.
The second stage is to pipe the water into the hamlets and homes that make up the village, this includes around 150 homes and farms, a monastery and a school. Bupsa is very spread out so there will be communal taps, and a large water storage tank going into the Primary School, plus individual homes getting taps into their kitchens. This is the kind of work that individuals and groups can get involved with, installing taps and building communal tap stations and interacting with villagers and the school in this incredibly beautiful part of the world.
History of our work in Bupsa Village
Moving Mountains first project in Bupsa was the restoration of the Buddhist Monastery which was started back in 2002 and completed in 2005 towards the end of the Maoist conflict. Villagers in Bupsa had approached the charity to ask for assistance in renovating the old building and putting a lama in place who could provide Buddhist studies for children in the region. At the opening of the Monastery the villagers moved all the Buddhist texts and accoutrements down from the caves in the mountains where they had been hidden for years, they continue to be displayed at Bupsa Monastery, and the opening coincided with Moving Mountains Chairperson Gavin Bate’s solo climb of Everest, he rushed back to the village just in time for the big opening with the whole community.
Our second big project in Bupsa was the construction of the local Primary School, and the subsequent rebuild and expansion after the 2015 earthquake devastated many of the buildings at the school. Bupsa Primary teaches up to Class 5 (end of primary school education) and aside from the long term development provided, Moving Mountains also provides the salaries for three of the teachers at the school and twice-yearly we purchase books and teaching equipment to ensure the children attending continue to receive excellent primary education.
The current ‘Water For Life’ project has been designated as a priority by the municipal development authority following an approved survey. Moving Mountains Trust will work with Moving Mountains Nepal to implement the project and the local villagers will provide donation in kind through local labour.
Bupsa Monastery
Bupsa Primary School
Bupsa on Google Maps
