|
> programs
> Learning Centers
computer lab
tuition
>scholarships
sponsorships
>
aiding
opportunity
soul food
lifestock
HOPE supplies
>HOPE House
|
Opportunity Aid General Program Fund
We believe that a child must learn on a full stomach, must study without
the worries of survival, and must have the appropriate educational
materials necessary to receive the full benefits. Our Opportunity Aid
General Fund (OAG) provides nourishment in the truest sense for the body,
mind, and soul, by continuously evaluating the most critical needs of our
target communities and quickly implementing focused programs that provide
immediate support. We bring shelter, medicine, food, and education to Nepal's neediest.
Initiatives
Community Education Centers
After years of preparation, we opened our first education center in 2004 in Arba village in Midwestern Nepal, laying computer lines across rice paddies and
banana groves to connect the people to the world. Since inception, we have trained over 1400 students from 8-56 years of age
in computer literacy, provided free internet access, helped students move
into meaningful employment, and aided in revitalizing communities by
reducing youth migration. Our innovative peer to peer program hires former students to train and move into the teaching roles. We find that they teach best because they understand the struggles of their students, have been one before.
Our Education Centers help to bridge the poverty chasm by providing the poor
Access to the benefits of technology to improve their quality of life. Local
villagers now use technology in a variety of innovative applications to
enrich their lives and expand their opportunities.
Means to obtaining critical health, social, and education information
Contact with potential buyers in cities saving time and money and creating markets
where none were before
Communication for families torn apart when members seeks work overseas reunite through
email, often for the first time in years
Teachers who now make interesting
and complex handouts and posters that usually enrich only the classrooms
of the wealthy
Discover of a world of knowledge
Our Centers also administers our scholarship program, educational outreach, free exam tutoring sessions and health education programs.
Youth Scholarship: Invest in HOPE for a child
Too many children are not afforded an education, youth
disadvantaged by gender, ethnicity, caste, homelessness, disability and
poverty. When selecting children for scholarships, we look to the most urgent and desperate
cases, with an eye on supporting girls who are too often left behind to
care for siblings, prepare food, collect firewood and work in the fields.
In 2004, only 28.8% for females are literate compared to 63.8% of men.
Female school attendance in rural areas is appallingly low even as studies
prove that investment in girls education is one of the best methods of
fighting poverty, by empowering them to improve their families, quality of
life with better nutrition, health care, hygiene, reduced fertility and
infant mortality as well as economic benefits.
HOPE House: A home for orphans
With no social safety net, when tragedy strikes and children lose their parents to violence or poverty, they are left homeless and alone. That was the plight of our HOPE House children, youth who were living on the streets, in one case since the age of 3. We opened HOPE House in 2006 located in Kathmandu. Each of our children receive all the benefits of a loving family: shelter, acceptance, medical care, education, life skills training and most importantly, the transforming power of hope. We work hard to ensure each child receives a high quality primary and secondary education, and to help them transition into adulthood with the tools they need to succeed.
SoulFood
During Dasain, the Nepalese holiday of Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter
all in one, the poorest struggle to scrape together enough money to buy a small animal
for a spiritual feast which is often the only meat they will eat for an
entire year. But even that is difficult for many who only just survive on
rice and lentel soup. HOPE purchases large water buffalos, which
the community of the poor gather together and communally celebrate. Each
family goes home with 25 lbs. of meat, 10 lbs of rice, a liter of oil, and spices
to create a feast that will literally feed their families for week. $25 can provide a
week-long holiday feast for 5 families.
LifeStock
Often families resist placing children in school for fear of losing their
labor in the struggle to survive, condemning them to a childhood of
pounding stones, home servitude, or worse, being kidnapped into the sex
trade. We offer families an alternative through the livestock for life
program, where they receive a gift of livestock: chickens,
lambs, goats or ducks in exchange for enrolling
their children in school and keeping them there. Combine your gift with a
scholarship to complete the circle and get the children into school. A single lamb provides milk and cheese to nourish a family, wool to sell and breeding for income . Just
$36.00 buys a lamb or goat to provide a family with a sustainable
source of food and income.
HOPE Supplies
Often the biggest obstacles to learning are the lack of necessary
supplies.
HOPE works with
local schools to identify critical needs and purchase supplies to create an
effective learning environment. Rural schools almost all uniformly lack
the most basic needs: chalk boards, chairs, pencils, even teachers and
walls in some cases, let along teaching aids. Poor students cannot afford
notebooks but instead often use a scrap of wood painted black and
scratched on with chalk. Some recent purchases HOPE has made with
its funds: $70 bought science lab equipment for a rural secondary
school, $50 bought pencils and notebooks for 300 children and $35 bought
volley ball equipment to allow students to enjoy recreational/teamwork
activities.
HOPE Special Needs Scholars
We reserve a special scholarship fund for students with unique educational
needs allowing us to respond with great flexibility to individual
circumstances. Most recently, we aided a young, gifted scholar, who family
was in such dire straits that he tried to get to Iraq to find work, with
study materials and a prep course for the prestigious Chartered
Accountancy entrance exam. He was successful and is now enrolled in an all
expense-paid program ensuring a bright future and a pathway out of
poverty.
For pocket change for many of us, your donation gives root to HOPE in unbelievably difficult conditions. Please give what you can, knowing
that 100% of every dollar goes directly to the desperately
disadvantaged. Support that one child with a scholarship and make a
difference in many lives. Change starts with HOPE
|
|
