Double the Contact Centers, Double the FUN!
This year, for the first time ever, the Sponsor Trip included a visit to both Contact Centers! As of this past summer, Mitrata and our Nepali NGO partner, Bhuvaneshwori Satyal Foundation (BSF), now have two Contact Centers.
Trip participants, Contact Center and BSF Staff, and Students at the new Swayambhu Contact Center.
The Contact Center is an early childhood education program that serves our most vulnerable children. The children who attend the Contact Centers are between the ages of 4 and 12 years old. They often come from broken families, are malnourished, and lack the school-readiness skills that would be necessary for them to learn if they were immediately entered into school.
At the Contact Centers, these children provided an educational foundation in a nurturing, loving environment, similar to the Montessori model. The children enter at the preschool level where they are taught basic skills including reading, writing and an introduction to English. They are also provided with hygiene education, healthcare and high-quality protein-rich meals and healthy snacks.
On this visit, Sponsors were able to visit both Centers while the children were in class. They were able to spend some time in each of the classes, eat a typical Contact Center lunch, watch some incredible dance and song performances by the children, and even visit a few of the children’s homes!
“Going to the contact centers was such a joy! The children are so happy and anxious to interact with us. It was fun to get on the floor and talk with them. They danced and sang for us. We even got to play with them during recess. Many hand games were played!”
