Moving Mountains Nepal works on issues of social welfare and health in the Solukhumbu region of Nepal, assisting the local people to rebuild their communities and take control of their well-being.
Social Enterprise Programmes
Moving Mountains is proud to have provided microfinance opportunities for local income generation projects in both Bupsa and Bumburi. These projects have led to the creation of a co-op in the villages, making sure the wealth is shared throughout the community.
Some projects we’ve sponsored include investing in businesses that use the energy created by our hydro-electric dam or building machinery to make flour and oil from corn, one of the most common crops grown in the Himalayas.
Through any of our projects, we ensure that the work we do and businesses we sponsor are working towards the betterment of our communities here in Nepal. We constantly strive to be one of the best charities and most conscientious of our long-term development goals. To do this, we work with the local people, taking their input into account with every project and microfinance business we run.
Infrastructure Programmes
Moving Mountains Nepal has invested heavily in improving the infrastructure of these two villages in the Himalayas. We believe that a solid infrastructure is the best foundation for the positive growth and long-term development of any community.
Over twenty years, we’ve completed a huge variety of projects, including building a hydro-electric dam in 2005 that still provides power for the villages. Today, we provide funding for the maintenance and upkeep of the dam.
We’ve also sponsored the refurbishment of monasteries in both villages, improving the water supply to homes, installing eco-friendly cooking stoves, and we provide capacity building workshops on building and renovating structures in order to improve the long-term sustainability of this infrastructural development.
Our holistic approach to development doesn’t focus solely on any one aspect of a community. Rather, we choose to work from the ground up and from the top down simultaneously, creating a more lasting solution to the problems.
Social Welfare and Health Programmes
Another piece of our holistic development initiatives includes focusing on the health and social well-being of our community. This can mean everything from building health clinics to running educational programs teaching rural people about the best practices for the health of their family.
Over the past twenty years, Moving Mountains Nepal has constructed a health clinic in Bumburi village that is staffed permanently by nurses. This clinic provides vital care for communities who otherwise have to travel for days to meet a doctor.
On top of that, Moving Mountains hosts annual free medical camps that bring Nepali doctors and foreign medical volunteers up to these rural villages to provide much needed medical care and education to these remote populations. We also use these camps as an opportunity to collect data about the state of healthcare and any problems found in our community.
Our commitment to the social and medical wellbeing of our communities is long-standing. We don’t simply send up medical volunteers once a year. Instead, we work with the community to improve their access to healthcare 365 days in the year.
Educational Programmes
We conduct a variety of educational programmes and initiatives in Bupsa and Bumburi. These programmes focus on increasing educational opportunities for the children in our community and making sure that the children have the resources they need to get to school and stay in school.
Over the years, we’ve built and expanded on the primary schools in both Bupsa and Bumburi. Twenty years ago, these schools were crumbling buildings nearly empty of students. Today, they are safe, secure structures where all the children of the community have access to education.
We also provide school fees for select secondary school children ages 11 to 17 to attend the Sapta Gandhi School in Kathmandu. For students interested in attending college, Moving Mountains is able to provide access to college courses by covering their university fees or vocational training costs. All the students we sponsor must meet our strict educational and performance requirements.
For teachers, Moving Mountains provides books, stationery, and IT equipment, along with providing a supplemental salary for government teachers. In our experience, once teachers have their financial needs covered, they feel less stress and can focus on providing a good education to the children in our community.
Promoting Good Healthcare in Nepal
Since the villages of Bupsa and Bumburi were isolated for such a long time, they lacked access to proper healthcare. For many years, villagers had no access to healthcare at all. If they fell sick, they would often have to walk for many miles, even days, to reach the nearest doctor. Serious illnesses required a long and expensive trip to Kathmandu. As a result, the well-being of all in the village suffered.
In order to combat this problem and encourage good health and wellbeing in these beautiful villages, Moving Mountains Nepal began running Medical Camps in 2010. These camps bring qualified Nepalese Doctors and foreign volunteers into the village offer free medical care and screenings to all.
Not only do these medical camps give us an opportunity to provide much-needed assistance to our community, but they also enable us to collect valuable data on the status of health issues in the region. This data allows us to develop more targeted and effective health programming for Bupsa, Bumburi, and the surrounding area.
Using this important health data, and money raised from our medical volunteers over the years, we’ve now built a permanent medical clinic in Bumburi. This vital clinic offers frontline healthcare for the people of these villages. The clinic is staffed by nurses and we hope in the future to employ full-time doctors as well.
These valuable medical programs are only possible because of the support and fundraising that comes from our volunteers. Our medical camp volunteer programs are a wonderful opportunity for medical students to gain valuable experience while giving back to a community in need.
Health Programmes in Nepal
Our programmes in Nepal focus primarily on the communities of Bupsa and Bumburi in the Solukhumbu region, near Mount Everest. For many years, these communities were cut off and forgotten, isolated by Maoist rebel violence and a lack of tourism in the area.
Because of this relative isolation, the people of Bupsa and Bumburi lacked access to basic healthcare services. If villagers fell seriously ill, they were forced to walk for days to the nearest large town or take a long and expensive journey to Kathmandu.
Working with the villagers and local authorities, Moving Mountains Nepal set up Medical Camps in the village of Bumburi, bringing Nepali doctors and foreign volunteers to the village to provide healthcare and collect valuable data. Over time, we’ve been able to help thousands of people receive treatments that they would otherwise not have access to.
Todays, thanks to the hard work of the villagers and the funds raised by our medical volunteers, we’ve constructed a permanent clinic in Bumburi, staffed with full-time nurses. Our hope is to bring doctors to the area in the near future.
