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Annual
report 2008 -
Click here for pdf >>>
First of all, best wishes for 2008! With your own health as
the first priority. It will become a year where we have a
lot of plans. The plans are already worth reading this report.
But, in every year report there will be told what is achieved
in the last year. When we reflect on this, we are a little
bit impressed ourselves. Suvadra achieved a lot, thanks to
our fantastic sponsors, donors, volunteers, our homebase in
Netherland and of course our staff in Nepal! Next to that
a lot of programmes were organized. Because of that, the knowledge
about us expanded. Thank you for all that and what is going
to be done in the future. From small help to big pushes in
the back, thanks! They give us and our kids a warm and thankful
feeling. We wish you a lot of fun by reading this year report.
Nepal
Nepal was in the light from the powercuts in 2008 (planned
and unplanned ones), from fuel shortages, much higher prices
for all kinds of goods and most of all the biggest event for
the Nepalis; the elections in April.
A big victory for the Maoist. The people has decided that
the Maoists, who fought for years against the government and
the king, should show their capacities on the political field.
In the constitution will be mentioned that Nepal will be a
republic from now on. Most important points after the elections
were the rewriting of the constitution and the joining of
the 'People's Liberation Army' from the Maoists with the regular
army.
Both points are going slowly and are taking probably more
time then the agreed two years. Hopefully this doens't mean
that other reforms take a long time too.
We also saw a lot of demonstrations before the Olympics in
China from Tibetan monks.
Swarga
In 2007 we already took in 4 extra kids necessary for meeting
our 2008 goal; growing to 15 kids: Deepa, Shreejana, Sita
and Rachita. In January we got also Damber. With these extra
kids we stayed one big happy family. We also got a new didie,
Arati. Next to Tulasa and Raje she was going to take care
of our kids.
With
all these new kids we again looked at their possiblities on
the physical, educational and independance field. Sometimes
we have to review these goals and possibilities, e.g. in the
case of Deepa and Rachita. We thought they would be able to
follow normal education, going to the same school as all the
kids are going to. But apparently this wasn't the case. And
then there are not so much facilities for kids like them,
so we decided to make our own Swarga Daycare!! For kids who
can't go to a regular school. They get more individual attention
and adjusted lessons. In april 2008 we started with this and
next to Deepa and Rachita we also put Sabin in the class.
As a teacher we changed Raje from didie to teacher; Raje-teacher
instead of Raje-didie. We had to find a new didie then and
after looking here and there we found Krisna-didie. And she
is focusing on the work with needs to be done in the kitchen;
cooking, cleaning, etc. Tulasha and Arati are focused on the
caretaking of the kids.
More objectives which needed to be reviewed, with Binita we
discovered that she has a metabolic disorder, which means
that slowly, slowly she is deteriorating. Her motorical skills
are getting worse and worse. How and what is not exactly clear,
so our goal with her is now to give her a nice as possible
life and to keep on stimulating her as much as possible as
long as possible.
Also with Sabin we had to make adjustments in his treatment.
Before starting the Daycare he went to a facility for mentally
disabled children, on the other side of Bhaktapur. He walked
there everyday. His physical condition got worse and worse
and because of that he was more often falling. With our physiotherapist
Lata we made a plan to get his stamina better, by letting
him walk rounds on the ground and cycle more. Sabin is luckily
always motivated to do this extra exercises!
Besides that it is always nice to see other kids improve,
some examples: Prakriti: she walks independently now.
Asmita: was last year only crawling and had little balance,
now she is making some steps independtly.
Rachita: she didn't walk and had big problems with her independancy.
Now she is walking with a walker and is almost doing everything
herself alone. She still needs a lot of encouragement! Also
we discovered she has epilepsy, for which she needs medicines.
We also had to say goodbye to some kids. Kids who were with
us from the beginning. So the goodbye was hard, but we knew
they were going home, so..Dipika wanted to go home very badly,
she was getting more and more homesick. Her treatment was
also finished, so we decided to let her go home. We still
help her with her education, so you will hear from her still.
We also said goodbye to Prativa, her parents wanted to have
her home again and wanted her to go to a Christian schopl.
Our help is finished and we hope she will do fine! Because
of this goodbye we had space for two kids again. At the same
moment we had 3 applications and we couldnt'say one to either
of them, so we admitted them all: Sunita, Subesh and Shova.
Our Swargafamily had 16 members from that moment on. Shova
and Subesh go to school, Sunita goes to our Daycare.
Our kids are doing fine at school or Daycare. For Binita and
Sita they finally agreed they need some extra care at school,
with adjusted exams and extra classes! That is nice.
External activities
This year we didn't do our traditional healthcamp in one of
the remote villages around Bhaktapur, but we focussed on a
specific target Group and we held at in our Swarga itself.
We organized a Cerebral Palsy Camp, in cooperation with the
CP Centre in Dhapakhel. Present were, besides Maartje (volunteer)
and Lata (our own physiotherapist), also German neurologist
Gunther Gross-Selbeck, his wife Claudia (physiotherapist,
specialised in CP-kids) and two physios from the CP Centre.
On 24th and 25th of September they visited us and check 17
children, medical and physiotherapeutical. They took the time
to make a good diagnosis and made suggestions for the treatment.
External kids
We already had Bimal, Yuvraj, Alish and Ujjol. With them it
is going ok.
Added are: Sandya; she is 5 years old, she has leukemia and
we pay her medicines. Minca; 8 years, with the support of
sponsors she is in an institution for mentally handicapped
children.
Dipika: everybody knows her story. Suman: a 25 year old very
spastic man. We helped him one time with establishing a tuiton
centre.
Deepa Lama; a hearing impaired girl, for which first an operation
is needed for her perforated eardrum. After that we will think
about a suitable education for her.
Dhanaraj; applied for help throught a friend of us,
who saw him on a trekking. He has epilepsy and needed medicinens
for that. He also has deformed feet because of an burning
accident. He probably will need an operation for that, which
we are going to provide in 2009. But first he needs to get
his epilepsy under control.
Volunteers
Also in 2008 we got a lot of help from volunteers. Next
to the teaching at a school, helping with the daily activities
in Swarga, our volunteers were also important in giving First
Aid lessons, starting the DayCare, uplifting the level of
physiotherapy, rewardsystem for Rachita, making a beautiful
ThankYou-card. Thank you for that! Also in Netherland people
help us a lot: by making clothes for dols, making and spreading
the Swarga postcards, for the publicity, for updating the
website, for the bookkeeping, for thinking about a new board.
Also thanks for that!!
Board
Also we had things happening on the board level. Richard
Weijers quitted his work as a treasurer. We started to look
for new boardmembers. When there is more clear about this,
we let you know. Suvadra is growing and with that we need
a bigger and stronger board.
Financial
We also grew in this; our regular donors grew to a nice group
of 50 people, people who monthly or yearly help us, what is
giving a secure feeling. We also every year get pleasantly
surprised by the programmes organized for us: birthdays, weddings,
candleshop, programmes on different school, concerts, churches.
We always get very warm by it.
Joyce van Rijen / Krishna Sundar Khaitu
Future
We are busy with expansion plans for the physiotherapy; we
want to hire Lata from 1st January fulltime, not only to give
physiotherapy to our own kids, but also for other kids from
Bhaktapur. This also means that our physioroom was too small.
We started in 2008 already to rent extra rooms in the house
next to Swarga. Together with Elize, Roos and Alies we decorated
that room and we started to give our physio there from mid
August. We have more space to let the kids cycle, exercise,
to play with the big ball. The kids will mainly be kids referred
by us by the CP Centre.
We also want to expand our Swarga Daycare with kids
from Bhaktapur. Our third goal we hope to realize this year,
is buying property where we can build our own Swarga; we hope
to find a location as perfect as present Swarga; reachable
roads, schools and hospitals. We want to help more kids and
expand to a nice amount of 30 kids.
We hope on the same support in 2009 from you!!
Greetings, Joyce and Krishna
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