Reconstruction in Nepal – by Kosuke Nakashima
On 25th April 2015, Nepal was hit by massive earthquake occurred in Nepal (also known as the Gorkha earthquake) and it caused serious damage. Nearly 9,000 people were killed, and nearly 22,000 people were injured. Till this date (March 2019), Nepal is still recovering from Earthquake. This long delay is mainly considered to be caused by political and geographical reasons.
Nepal is one of the poorest countries not only in whole world but also in Asia. Volunteers Initiative Nepal is trying to resolve this situation by running different projects such as women and youth empowerment, children’s development, house rebuilding and construction
(Volunteers Initiative Nepal is recruiting volunteers for those projects from overseas as well. See also: https://www.volunteersinitiativenepal.org/volunteer-and-internship-programs/)
But no matter how those projects goes forward, natural disasters like earthquake tend to ruin the achievements.
To end that, Disaster Risk Reduction programs that includes Reconstruction & Sustainability is crucial as other projects. Rebuilding a house consists of several stages. It starts from groundwork, digging carrying bricks, stones, sand, and any other resources .
Then full-scale house building, such as building walls, attaching roof, electricity, and other stuff. What you are going to do depends on which stage you arrive at. If you are going to stay in long term, maybe you will experience all of those. It certainly is hard work and you need to be tough. But building a house could be an achievement for you, just like trekking, which Nepal is well known for.
As mentioned above, the work is hard. On the other hand, this could be the best choice for your first step as a volunteer because of its simplicity. One volunteer from France cited the reason why he chose Reconstruction is there is no skill needed. He said that the best thing about doing this project is you can travel far from your country (of course, depends on where are you from) and meet the local people and work with them at the same time. He also mentioned that sometimes it’s good to take a break from your country and live with local people from different country and broaden your horizons.
While you are going to face hard work, you will have an opportunity to stay at local people’s house. Most popular homemade food in Nepal is Dal Bhat. Dal is cooked lentil soup and Bhat means boiled rice, and often served with Tarkari, which is vegetable curry. You are probably going to eat Dal Bhat almost every day and it is really good for health. You can figure out those from the fact you can see “Dal Bhat Power 24 Hours” shirts at almost every T-shirt store in Nepal and Chiya (tea) and Momo (Tibetan dumpling) are also popular in Nepal. You can enjoy the “Chiya break” and smack your lips over the Momo during your stay.
I actually experienced this project in the past. It was just for 2 weeks (it’s called as work camp), but even that 2 weeks was an extremely fruitful and satisfying experience which made me feel that I don’t want to leave Nepal. The hardest part of my stay wasn’t the work, it was to say goodbye to everyone who I met in Nepal and to Nepal itself. And that is the very reason why I came back to Nepal and am writing this article at VIN’s office as a volunteer writer.
Reconstruction is also a great chance to make international friends. Hard work forces you to cooperate with other volunteers, and it makes you become a friend with them naturally. During my stay, I became friends with other volunteers as well. I’m still in touch with them, and I met one of them when he came to my country.
Contributing to recovery from the earthquake by physical work, learning about different culture, enjoying tasty and healthy foods, and making international friends… How ideal that life is! Volunteers Initiative Nepali provides you a beneficial experience.
-Kosuke Nakashima
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