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February 2009 Newsletter

The past year has been a considerable trial for the charity in Nepal and updates on the website have unfortunately been overlooked because of the sheer stress of the situation for our Director Sioux Talbot who has had to battle with beaurocracy and corruption. The reason for this is that to operate legally in Nepal we have to work through a local NGO but the process of finding an NGO that is honest has been beset with all sorts of false starts some of which have been extremely painful.

However, we are now beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. We have now come to an agreement with a respected and trustworthy local NGO. This has enabled us to take on ten new children. Six of our original children are currently residing in another NGO run orphanage, we were required to move them by the Government when we were negotiating with that organisation about linking with them as our local NGO but this fell through. The children cannot be moved back without Government permission and the person responsible has been out of the country for sometime, but we expect them back soon and we expect to reach our maximum of twenty children in the coming weeks.

We moved buildings in December 2007, the new Talbot Centre is only a few minutes walk from our previous house and has much bigger, airier rooms and a nice garden with drive and secure gates.

We have also had a change of name to: The Talbot Foundation (Helping Children in Nepal), the reason for the change is that we are being more proactive in identifying children who may be at risk of ending up on the streets and catching them before they do.


My experience as a volunteer at the Talbot Centre: by Barre Brown (Ireland).

By the end of November (2008) the Talbot Centre was getting back on its feet. I arrived near the middle of November and in the last few weeks I had kept myself busy. Even though there were only 2 kids in the house there was still loads to do to prepare the house for the arrival of new children. I spent part of my day doing odd jobs around the house, but mostly I occupied myself with making a garden. We hope eventually to be able to make a really great place for the kids to play at the back of the house.

The back garden after clearing	The new arrivals with Pasang

Two weeks into my stay at the Talbot Centre the first of the new children arrive, 3 girls from a village outside Kathmandu; two of them sisters, accompanied by their grandmas. Their grandparents have been looking after them since their parents died a few years ago, but the grandparents are now getting too old to give them proper care. Soon they could have ended up on the streets of Kathmandu like so many others.

All the girls have with them are the clothes which they are wearing and a toothbrush. Susma we guess is 12, her sister Asmita 8 and Sanju 10, but since people in Nepal rarely keep proper records it is difficult to know how old anyone is and sadly when their birthdays are. After a cup of tea their grandparents prepare to leave. I see Sanju’s grandmother give her 10 rupees (about 8p but probably more than her grandma could afford), and then they say their goodbyes, however the kids barely look back or shed a tear as they begin their new lives at the Talbot Centre.

I take the girls out to the garden to play badminton as Sioux, Mr Mulmi (the NGO president) and Gyaljen, prepare for the arrival of another child. Phurdiki is a beautiful, shy 4 year old Sherpa girl from a village in Solukhumbu in the shadow of Mount Everest, her mother died a year ago and her father; an alcoholic, rarely went home to look after Phurdiki and she was left with neighbours.

Phurdiki Sherpa age 4	Eating dal bhat

Eventually everyone leaves and as it starts to get dark we prepare the kids for their first night in the Talbot Centre. First we pick out some clothes for them from the store downstairs. These will do for the moment until we can get some clothes made that will fit them. They are delighted picking through all the different clothes. After a dinner of dal bhat, which they will now get for lunch and dinner while they are at the centre, we prepare the kids for bed. Tonight the children will sleep in the children’s lounge since the Nanny who will sleep downstairs with them doesn’t arrive for a few days. It is amazing to see the kids set out their mattresses and blankets on the floor, as they settle into the first night of their new lives. Only Phurdiki sheds a few tears, but Susma put her arms around her to comfort her and they slept like that all night, Susma ended up acting like a mother to Phurdiki.

Dipesh & Achit	Pasang, Sanju, Asmita, Susma, Phurdiki

There was not a peep out of the kids all night until around 5am. I later learned that the kids were used to getting up at 4.30am in their village to do chores and work before going to school – when they did go to school. Anyway, that morning they all used the upstairs toilet which is a western toilet and normally only used by the family of the house manager and the volunteers. When I went to the toilet a little later I couldn’t understand why there were different footprints on the toilet seat. Of course the kids had never seen a toilet like this before and were used to squat toilets, so I guess they did what they thought they should. I would love to know how strange they must have thought we were building such high toilets and needing to climb on each time. Well thank God none of them fell in!!!

Toilet training over and the next day we spent drawing, colouring and playing hopscotch and badminton. Sioux talked to the local school about enrolling the children and got some fabric so uniforms could be made.

The next day 2 boys arrived from another NGO. Achit is 5 years old and his brother Dipesh is 3, he is tiny and I can easily pick him up with just one hand, he’s little more than a bag of bones. Achit was quite difficult that first day; he didn’t want to stay and cried for hours at the gate once everyone left. I sat with him for about an hour but couldn’t get him to understand my attempt at speaking Nepali, but even if I did speak his language, what could I say to a 5 year old who had just been dumped yet again to be looked after by another bunch of strangers? He just kept crying. Eventually we needed to get the two older girls to pry him away from the gate and carry him inside since it was getting dark and cold. Nobody could stop him crying so we started a game where I pretended that I was a sleeping tiger and then I would wake up and attack whoever was around me. After 5 minutes of this when everyone, including his brother joined in, Achit jumped on me and soon everyone was roaring with laughter and jumping around and screaming. After much laughter and dinner, Achit and Dipesh spread their blankets and mattresses on the floor, along with the girls, and everyone went straight to sleep. The TC now had 7 children, including Pasang (Gyaljen; the house manager’s child).

Everyone became good friends and this was confirmed one night a few days later when I heard screaming and shouting coming from the downstairs bedrooms. We had moved the children downstairs into their new rooms since the nanny had arrived to sleep with them. As I went to see what was happening; I discovered Gyaljen, trying to drag Pasang, his 2 ½ year old son, out of the boy’s bedroom. Eventually Gyaljen got Pasang upstairs to his bedroom. What was wrong? Pasang thought it was so unfair that he couldn’t sleep downstairs with the rest of the kids instead of upstairs with his Mum and Dad.

I was also fortunate enough during my time at the Talbot Centre to visit some of the places where some of the kids who the Talbot Centre would look to rescue lived. These included visiting a woman who lived outside a shop and had 3 children who she couldn’t look after, and a woman with 2 kids whose husband recently died and who had a long term illness so she couldn’t work to earn money to support her kids. There are just so many terrible situations in Nepal.

Unfortunately I soon had to leave the TC to go home but after all my great experiences I decided to try to go back early in 2009. Saying goodbye was heartbreaking, however I have already booked a flight to go back in February along with my girlfriend and my father. Our list of projects includes, seeding the garden, building some play equipment (climbing frame, swing, football goals...), building a chicken coup so the kids can have fresh eggs, making a vegetable patch and painting, along with spending as much time as possible with the kids.


Update from Sioux in Nepal:

February 2009 Everything is running extremely well at the Talbot Centre, we now have 10 resident children, however; the first 3 girls we admitted, Susma, Asmita and Sanju, chose to return to their families on 12th December. We celebrated Xmas Day with a party at the Talbot Centre attended by members of our NGO who’s secretary dressed as Father Xmas to hand out presents to the children. All the children were enrolled at a local private school and have all settled in and are very happy there. We are still awaiting the return of our original 6 children and I visit them whenever I can, they are all eager to come home and it’s difficult having to wait for ‘the powers that be’ to make a decision. So it’s onwards and upwards and hopefully an end to all the problems we experienced in 2008.

Don’t we look smart!	Enjoying Xmas Day with friends
Talbot Centre

To contact us please send an email to -

talbot@talbotcentre.o



Or to contact us by post:

In Nepal:

PO Box 8975

EPC 2791

Kathmandu

Nepal

In the UK:                                                                        

Phaedra Palfrey
Flat 25 Bethany House
St. Clement's Gardens
Bournemouth
BH1 4ED
Tel 01202 392776

All Talbot Centre Newsletters

February 2006	April 2006	May 2006	June 2006	April 2007	May-July 2007
Aug-Nov 2007	February 2009	March 2009	April 2009