More than 300 students whose education looked very bleak after the April 25th earthquake in Nepal will find new classrooms to study from Friday, July 21st. Bangalore Cares for Nepal came to their rescue and four new class rooms were inaugurated in a function in the school premises today. A library and lab block was also inaugurated.

Mr. T P Sharma, Mayor of Namobudha Municipality and Fr George Kannanthanam, who coordinated the Bangalore Cares for Nepal inaugurated the school along with Fr Antony Sebastian from ECHO and Mr Jose from AIFO.

Jal Kalyan Vidyalay is in Madhurapatti village of Kavre District, about 50 kilometres from Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. It is a secondary and high school with 300 students from the neighbourhood. The school building completely collapsed in the earthquake and the classes were being conducted in temporary classrooms.

Four class rooms have been completed at a cost of seven million nepali rupees (Rs 8.5 Nepali rupees). Proclade, an organisation from Spain has funded the works of the school. The project was implemented by Nepal Watch, an organisation based in Kathmandu along with the management and teachers of the school.

Bangalore Cares for Nepal is an initiative of the Church under the leadership of Fr George Kannanthanam, Claretian priest and social worker. Various congregations, Dioceses, non governmental organisations, corporate houses, funding agencies and generous individuals are part of it.

Fr George and his team from Bangalore Cares for Nepal reached Kathmandu the day after the earthquake hit Nepal killing 8500 people and bringing down about 800,000 buildings. Volunteers were gathered from India to distribute relief materials covering about 20,000 people. Focussing on shelter temporary shelters were provided to over 10,000 people. About 650 temporary tin roof houses were constructed to provide them short term housing. Sixty permanent earthquake resistant houses are now being built with Caritas Nepal financially supported by AIFO, Italy.

About 1000 students were helped to go back to the school by Bangalore Cares for Nepal by providing them the basic needs like school bags and books. A library and laboratory were built at the Jal Kalyan Vidyalay last year. Two batches of 15 students were taken to ECHO, Bangalore for hotel management training. More students are being recruited now.