Association For Nepal and Himalayan Studies Newsletter Issue #1(1) June, 2015 Focus on Earthquake Response Upcoming Events There are now hundreds of events in support of our friends, families, and co-workers living in the aftermath of the recent earthquakes and tremors in Nepal & adjacent regions of South Asia. For more information, check out page 2 2 Courtesy: reliefweb.int Earthquake Relief We all want to help with the best response to recent events. Providing food, shelter, funds, and other inputs are needed, but it isn’t easy to know where to begin. See page 2 for ‘Tips for Donating to Earthquake Nepal Studies & Education 2 ANHS improves scholarly opportunities for citizens of Nepal and other Himalayan areas. CALL FOR PROPOSALS – ANHS has received earthquake related donations that we will distribute to eligible NGOs and others working on earthquake relief whose key mission corresponds with ours: research, education, and creative activities. ANHS members recently received information on this, and if you’d like to learn more, consider joining the ANHS community at ANHS Nepal Earthquake News Digest May has been a frantic month as both local and international volunteers get to work. News & rebuilding efforts are highlighted with links to major news. The ASSOCIATION FOR NEPAL AND HIMALAYAN STUDIES (ANHS) seeks to foster the study and understanding of Nepal and the Himalayas, and to improve communication among all who share this interest. 3 ANHS Senior Fellowship Award Congratulations to Richard Bownas, University of Northern Colorado, for his research project, "Maoist Model Villages and Social Transformation in Post-Conflict Nepal: A Village-based Research Study." The stipend of $1,500 is awarded annually. For more information, see the ANHS website. Issue #1(1) June, 2015 Earthquake Relief Focus on Earthquake Response Events: Rebuilding Nepal Tips for Donating to earthquake relief Re-building Nepal: Events by friends from far and wide We all want to help in whatever ways we can, but its hard to know the most effective way to spend our time and money. A few tips about donations: *Check out the charity on charity review websites such as Guidestar *Review the organization’s history and presence in Nepal *Ask questions before sending a donation about your particular interests. Do you want to know what % of donations goes toward salaries? Is it important to know if the organization registered as a charity? Do you know someone personally involved in the project? Can you target funds specifically for food, shelter, etc.? For a list of large Nepal-oriented charities (over $50k budget) with top ratings, visit Charity Navigator and also see our ANHS website for more charities. Please check https://www.eventbrite.com for many scheduled events being organized for fundraising and support for our friends and families in Nepal. You can even enjoy some events through virtual, online, or YouTube viewing. Eventbrite enables you to find Nepalrelated events near you. For example, Institute for Asian Studies, Vancouver, BC, Canada hosts a lecture June 2. Finally, please consider a donation to ANHS Earthquake Relief. We’re distributing funds to education-based efforts like school, museum and library rebuilding. resupplying. Volunteers prepare potatoes to feed Kathmandu and Lalitpur families who cannot return to their homes to cook meals. The volunteers are part of a local organization called Puri and Tarkari. Photo Credit: Gyaneswor Karki ANHS Database to Compile Skills of Nepal Experts & Relief Organizations ANHS will host a database that allows members to identify local NGOs and that are embedded in Nepal’s earthquake affected areas and experts that can contribute to the rebuilding efforts. The database will be an open platform for Nepali nationals and foreigners who know the affected areas to contribute. It will serve as a clearinghouse in coordinating long-term relief efforts. It will provide uniform digestible information to guide donors and INGOs in targeting local NGOs that are have a proven track record with local communities. It will also allow INGOs and NGOs the ability to source particular expertise and coordinate efforts among the organizations and individuals working in rebuilding efforts. Look for details in the next newsletter about filling up the data entry forms for the database... Bread & Vegetables for Displaced Families Food and water were some of the immediate needs of families in the Kathmandu and Lalitpur areas, unable to return to their damaged homes. Puri & Tarkari, a local immediate earthquake relief operation, went to work feeding displaced families. They set up a community “soup kitchen” for “Bread & Vegetables (puri ra tarkari). Read more here. Earthquake relief news cont. on Pg. 4 EDWON’s Rebuilding Fund for Gorkha Women Dalit women and their families in Gorkha are profoundly impacted with many of their homes destroyed. See more about Empower Dalit Women of Nepal here. 2 Issue #1(1) June, 2015 Focus on Earthquake Response Nepal - Earthquake News Digest 1 May 2015 Digging to save Nepal's cultural heritage after quake. Smartphone app being developed to document salvaged artifacts as historians and architects work on assessing the damage. By Annette Ekin, Aljazeera News View of Boudhanath from Pashupatinath. Photo: J. Fortier ANHS Student Prizes 15 May 2015 Singati: Another mountain village devastated in latest Nepal quake. BY ATHIT PERAWONGMETHA http://www.reuters.com/article Congratulations to Jacob Rinck and to Uma Pradhan, winners of the 2014 and 2015 ANHS Dor Bahadur Bista Prize for Best Graduate Student Paper Excerpts from their paper abstracts: Uma Pradhan. New Languages of Schooling: Ethnicity, Education and Equality in Nepal This paper aims to explore the contested space of mother-tongue education to understand the ways in which people position themselves within the polarizing debates of ethnicity-based claims on education in Nepal. Drawing from the ethnographic fieldwork in mother-tongue education school, in this paper, I illustrate that the students made meaning in their everyday world by maintaining the multilingual repertoire .... I propose a notion of simultaneity to explain this attempt to seek membership into multiple groups and display of apparently contradictory dynamics. ... contrary to the essentialist categories espoused in both nationalist discourse and ethnic activism, students in these school display affiliation to multiple languages and identities that were seen as neither incompatible nor binary opposites. Jacob Rinck. Land reform, Social Change and Political Cultures in Nepal’s Tarai. This paper examines aspects of Nepal’s changing political economy by tracing the relationship between political elites and agrarian structures in the central Tarai since the first democratic revolution in 1950. ...it argues that the political importance of land decreased significantly over the three decades of Panchayat rule between 1960 and 1990. ...land re-distributive effects in the short run may have been limited, but it does seem to have led to a significant decline of Raji Family, Kanchanpur. the value of land as form of political capital, and Photo: J. Fortier may have contributed to the opening up of 16 May 16 2015 Nepal earthquake: All 8 bodies found in crashed U.S. marine chopper, 3 bodies found yesterday, the other 5 pulled out of wreckage today northeast of Kathmandu Sun May 17, 2015 Nepal quake death toll becomes highest on record; dozens still missing 17 May 2015 Bungamati Kumari in quake shelter. The Living Goddess of Bungamati, seven-year-old Smriti Bajracharya, has been living in a shelter after the 25 April earthquake. Report by Min Ratna Bajracharya, Nepali Times 3 Focus on Earthquake Response Issue #1(1) June, 2015 Focus on Earthquake Response Earthquake Relief From Don Messerschmidt, Friends, I am packing and will be in Nepal from June 13, working with the Gorkha Foundation (GF) at the April 25 earthquake epicenter in severely devastated Gorkha District. The GF Director and I, and our all-volunteer staff, will be meeting community leaders and partner organizations to plan for the long-term recovery and rehabilitation of local villages, families and infrastructure, and rapid rejuvenation of the local economies. This will be a disaster relief working trip, along with an assessment for long-term planning to help the villagers recover their lives and rebuild their communities. High on our list will be assistance in the recovery and rebuilding of local schools and healthposts, and re-charging the village microcredit program. The Gorkha Foundation http://gorkhafoundation.org is an ALL VOLUNTEER BASED 501(C)3 NONPROFIT. All relief work is voluntary, and all donations go directly into disaster assistance, with No Overhead. For further information, send me a note [email protected] If you have specific ideas for helping, send me a note. Nepal May Earthquake News Digest Continued... Sun May 13, 2015 Nepal School System Left Shattered in Aftermath of Quake. Officials say that thousands of schools have been destroyed and that tens of thousands of classrooms need to be replaced. By Gardiner Harris New York Times Article 16 May 2015 Nepal earthquake: the village wiped off the map in a few terrifying seconds. The beautiful Langtang valley was almost obliterated when the second quake hit last week, reducing a popular trekking village to rubble Carole Cadwalladr, The Guardian May 31, 2015 Wary children return to schools after Nepal earthquake. Children affected by last month's earthquake in Nepal officially returned to schools, five weeks after the disaster killed more than 8,600 people and destroyed many homes. By GOPAL SHARMA Reuters News Article 4 LETTERS FROM MEMBERS & FRIENDS Our friends Boyd Michailovsky and Martine Mazaudon relay the message that they compiled a list of disaster relief organizations which they would like to share with ANHS members. Large Organizations http://www.handicap-international.fr/pays/nepal http://www.medecinsdumonde.org/A-linternational/Nepal http://www.msf.org/country/nepal http://www.actioncontrelafaim.org/fr/content/nep al More specific groups You Caring: Fund for Nepal Earthquake Victims Architecture http://www.archi-urgent.com/ Infrastructure http://www.sappros.org.np/site/ Education www.france.aide-et-action.org Medical: ASBL (Dr Pierre Soete) http://www.nmmh.clinic/en/home http://www.britainnepalmedicaltrust.org.uk Update from Pasang Sherpa Earthquake Relief Needed in Chaurikharka VDC, Solukhumbu The first earthquake on April 25th (7.8 magnitude) severely damaged villages in the Pharak region of Solukhumba, in the southern part of the Everest region in Nepal. The second earthquake on May 12th (7.3 magnitude) destroyed what was left after the first one. One month after the first earthquake, 38 villages, 834 households and 4600 people continue to wait for substantial relief efforts and remain uncertain about the future. The government of Nepal has not listed Solukhumbu as a priority district, and major relief operations have been absent. Immediately after the first earthquake, three volunteers, including myself an anthropologist, Un Sherpa, a medical volunteer and Krishna Bhetwaal, an engineer volunteer, visited Pharak to assess needs. We visited over 200 houses in 30 villages and found that help is urgently needed. The villages of Jorsalle, Bengkar, Gumela, Thado Koshi and Chaurikharka, to name a few, have been severely damaged with no habitable house. Families are living in crowded, cold and wet temporary tarpaulin shelters; schools are struggling to stay open; health posts are waiting for medical supplies and staffs. To date, villagers have received tarpaulins, tents, rice, oil, salt and some cash from multiple sources. All of this, however, has come in insufficient quantities. It has been found that Imja glacial lake did not burst but a different lake might have burst. According to local sources, water level appears to be safe on May 26, 2015. We hope to hear from you! Please send any announcements for the upcoming issues by the 1st and 15th of each month. Include: Date, Title, (Sub-title optional), Announcement details, and Link. Also include your name & contact (email, address). NEWSLETTER EDITOR, Jana Fortier, [email protected] 5
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