It has been a year since an earthquake tore down buildings in Nepal but Asha Foundation president Pauline Gleeson says the country is slowly moving forward and rebuilding.
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A 7.8 magnitude shook the country on April 25, 2015.
Mrs Gleeson, from Moruya, recently returned from visiting Nepal and said one school had been rebuilt, so far, using funding from Asha.
“We are just about the start the rebuild on another entire school, of kinder to year 10 students, to the north, east of Kathmandu,” she said.
“All the building materials are going up there this week.
“We were hoping to start the construction of four more classrooms at another remote school but that may not happen just yet. I don’t think we will get it done before the monsoon hits in June.”
During the trip, Asha members delivered 160 sanitary kits, made by the Batehaven Days for Girls team, to benefit Nepalese females.
Because the females in Bhadratar, a small village in Nepal, do not have any sanitary items, they are unable to attend school while menstruating.
“It was the most amazing thing. We had women there who were crying. One woman just wouldn't let me go, she just kept on hugging me,” Mrs Gleeson said.
“The looks on the girls faces were like ‘you’ve got to be kidding me, we don’t have to be embarrassed anymore, we can go to school when we have our period’.
“It was so liberating, it is absolutely life changing.
“I felt very humbled and felt like crying too. As a women, I just got a connection. It was unbelievable.
“I know through Asha we are doing wonderful things for kids and education and all that sort of thing, but as a women, to be able to help 160 women and girls with something that happens to everyone in the world was just great.”
Mrs Gleeson said it was amazing to see the impact small non-government funded organisations, like Asha, were having in Nepal.
“To see the impact we are having is amazing. If you just chip away and help people, you don’t have to be big and do big things, it makes such a difference,” she said.
“The village north-east of Kathmandu is on top of a ridge line. All 65 homes were flattened there and a German NGO is rebuilding all the homes.
“We are rebuilding the school.”
Mrs Gleeson said there were still aftershocks from the earthquake. “There were two when we were there.”
