Objectives

River Bed Communities

The Mountain Trust aims to assist river bed communities in Nepal in various ways. These include facilitating visits by medical volunteers, providing basic medicines and bedding material, sponsoring students through education to covering the costs of surgery etc. in more serious cases.

Since Nepal is a land locked country, the poorest are forced to break stones into aggregate and sand in the river beds to sell for construction sites. For the most basic subsistence living, family units typically include five or more. Exchange rates vary but each earns the family approximately 42 pence (Sterling) or 0.42 (Euros) a day - barely enough to feed the family and with no room to spare for health, educational or other costs.

Here, Munizha Ahmad-Cooke presents one of ten thick double-sized quilts to a river bed mother which will keep three or four warm on a cold night next to the river. The recipents were carefully selected on the basis of need. Munizha joined a team of Trustees and Volunteers visiting Nepal in October 2009. She has focused her many talents on the Trust's Student Sponsorship scheme and on improving the Trust's governance, regulations and procedures.

Gopal Bhusal, President of Mountain Trust Nepal, explains the assistance of Featherton House residents in making blankets etc.before he hands them over. As you can see from their faces, they were surprised and deeply impressed by the dedication and hard work put in by everyone who has contributed to bettering some of the neediest people's lives. In fact, they managed to bring one of the leading Nepali guitar players along who played a traditional song, dedicated to the Trust's work.

In 2008 the Trust took two medical undergraduates from Emmanuel College, Cambridge to the river bed communities in Nepal. Rhiannon Evans and Dana Khoriati helped diagnose and treat low level cases on the spot, solving a chronic chest infection in one case and prescribing skin creams and talcum powder for the women's feet (which were rarely dry and frequently cut walking through rivers without footware). They also witnessed a variety of surgical operations and taught in schools and to womens' groups whilst in the field.

Still others have raised funds so that we can buy cheap wind-up radios to distribute among the river bed communities. This would enable the children there to tune in and hear our educational broadcasts on FM each evening, recorded by the best teachers.

Life can often be more complex than this - the idea of attending school for most river bed children is unknown and we want to 'enlighten' rather than 'educate' unthinkingly.

This poor gentleman had been breaking stones all of his life and as a result of continuously cut and wet skin, developed leprosy on his hands. Whilst the Mountain Trust arranged for him to be admitted to Green Pastures Leprosy Clininc for treatment, it was already too late to save his fingers.These had to be amputated to prevent further spread and infection. Despite this, the river bed grandfather has been able to return to his family without risk of contagion.