Visiting Reliance Residential School

Today, Rick and I visited Reliance Residential School, a school with 300 students, 70 of which are boarded at the school and 20 of those are Mitrata children.  The school was very clean and well organized.  They had a room setup for us to meet and photograph the children.  With the help of BSF’s program coordinators, Aleesh and Susmita, we quickly got busy meeting the children. 

We met with a wide range of children from very young pre-schoolers to seventh graders. The children were all very polite and well mannered.  The littlest ones needed some help writing their names and a bit of help understanding our questions during the videos but that just made things a bit more cute and charming. 

Bijay’s sponsor sent him some Flarp! We’re not sure what that is, but Bijay was excited!

After meeting with the children we met with Anita Gurung, Reliance’s principal.  Anita welcomed us into her office and spoke at length about her philosophy of teaching the children to be grateful and disciplined.  We could see that she runs a tight ship both with her staff and the children, but we could also tell that she genuinely cares about the children’s welfare.  We are grateful to have such a fine school available to our children. She emphasized how important it is to her that all children who attend the school the same are treated the same, whether they are sponsored or the children of millionaires: there are no castes at Reliance school, she said.

Rick and Jim with Anita Gurung

After the visit to Reliance, Rick and I met Leena Saytal, the Executive Director of our partner in Nepal BSF (Bhuvaneshwori Satyal Foundation), for lunch at Himalayan Java in the tourist district of Thamel. I had stayed near Thamel on my trip to Nepal in 2011. We visited several of the merchants who provide the goods that Mitrata sells at our holiday bazaars and trivia nights. These visits are important for sourcing unique, fair trade goods to sell at our events!

It was an exhausting but fun-filled day!

— Jim Craig, Board President

Thamel market district