Tsagam and Bakhang are small and remote villages in Nepal. Over 125km from Kathmandu, the villages are inaccessible by car and can only be reached by walking a steep mountain path for seven hours.

The villages are home to 60 Tibetan families who make a meagre living through small scale subsistence farming, artefact making and semi-nomadic herding. Each of the villages has a small school for the local Tibetan children.

Prior to 2009, there was only one teacher per school and lessons were taught only in Nepali. In addition to the obvious problems of only having one teacher for a school full of children, the village parents were worried that a lack of Tibetan education would mean their children would start to lose their Tibetan heritage and language skills. The parents felt it was very important for the children to learn to read and write in their own language in order to preserve their Tibetan identity. However, with most
families barely eking out a living, funding Tibetans teachers at the schools was out of the question.

Since 2009, Tibet Relief Fund has been providing a grant to cover the cost of salaries for two Tibetan teachers (one at each school). Since that time, attendance has risen as parents feel more comfortable sending their children to school. Initial reports after the two major
earthquakes in April and May, 2015 suggested that the area had not
been badly hit. However, as news trickled through, we learnt that both Tsagam and Bakhang schools, along with the local nunnery and village houses, were very badly damaged and in need of complete rebuilding.

Two other organisations have managed to find funds to cover the rebuilding of the nunnery and the school at Tsagam. The villagers themselves have been reusing stone from the collapsed buildings and have been working on rebuilding their homes and businesses for some time.

However, the school at Baking has no funds to rebuild and the Nepalese government cannot provide any. Students from the school have been studying in flimsy tents for a year now and both students and parents are starting to get disheartened by the situation. The number of students attending classes has already dropped significantly. Before the earthquakes struck, 72 local children were studying at Baking school. Now, there are just 35. Encouraging these 35 children to go back to school is vital for their futures. With the psychological scars of the earthquakes still healing, parents are understandably concerned about the safety of sending their children to study in tents or makeshift buildings.
We aim to get all 72 children back into school by reconstructing Bakhang school using earthquake resistant techniques – providing a safe, warm place for the children to complete their studies. Parents whose children have already dropped out have already said they would send their children to school again if they knew they would be

The plan is to work with local partners to rebuild the school using local materials to keep the costs down. However, given its remote location and the difficulty of transporting machinery and labour this is still a major project which will cost a lot of money.

Some funding has already been secured but we still need to raise £21,000 in total to be able to cover the full cost of the rebuild.
Added to funds we already have restricted for earthquake relief in Nepal, and some funding secured from an individual, this will
provide:

3 x classrooms

1 x office

1 x kitchen/dining room

1 x toilet block

Ideally, the school would need five classrooms to allow students in each year group to study in separate classrooms. However, at this stage, they would be able to use the office as an additional classroom if
necessary. We have requested plans from the architects which will allow
two further classrooms to be added at a later date (funding permitting).