Admin traduction (Deepl)

The preparatory trip by Marc, Jean Claude and Vincent in October/November 2016 was fruitful and enabled the organisation of the two building-school projects that will begin this month under the responsibility of Vincent Pena and the village site managers.

The two families whose needs were deemed most urgent were chosen with the help of the village leaders; the plots were measured, the plans were proposed to these families, the quantity of recoverable materials was evaluated, the others were ordered and their transport from Salleri was organised. In addition, basic building materials, portable electrical equipment (sawing table, plane) and a generator were selected and ordered from Kathmandu and Salleri. Yadav and Jase were responsible for purchasing them and transporting them by tractor.
We have budgeted for support for a further 4 houses in 2017: these will be rebuilt to earthquake-resistant standards under the supervision of local craftsmen trained on our site in January. They will be provided with templates and materials that will be left in their hands. Assistance has been programmed for a further 9 houses next year.

We have confirmation from Yadav that everything is ready, and Vincent Pena is leaving on 14 January.

The other actions are continuing, in particular aid for the construction of smoke evacuation chimneys has been given to 11 families. We are continuing to fund this undeniable health improvement, to the tune of €60 per chimney.

Other projects, one of which was the discovery of the October trip, may fall to us:

• the consolidation of the Tholodunga school, built by the English association Classroom in the Clouds; it suffered a landslide during the last monsoon, caused by cracks induced by the earthquake and also construction on an inadequately stabilised embankment. Due to the withdrawal of the English Association, a request has been made to us. This brand new school cannot be left in such a sad state. An expert opinion (which we wanted) is in favour of supporting it with gabions at a cost of 7,000 Euros. The ANUVAM Board will discuss the matter.

• The Bodu school will also have to be rebuilt once the water supply problem has been resolved; an estimate is being drawn up for one or two classrooms…
  the first floor of “our” building at Basakhali Secondary School will also have to be demolished, in accordance with the recommendations of the expert report we commissioned.

• part of the village of Lop, threatened by landslides, will have to be moved to a higher area: this concerns 18 houses and some of these families will no doubt need financial assistance.
  For the time being, we are concentrating on the partially destroyed individual houses in which families, lacking the means to rebuild, have spent a second winter (with snow, which is exceptional in Rapcha) in extremely precarious conditions. Nevertheless, rebuilding the schools is no less essential in the medium term…

Obviously, the scale of the task means that it will require considerable financial resources and therefore time; our actions may seem like a drop in the ocean, but, like the hummingbird dear to Pierre Rabhi, we are doing our bit…

Fortunately, the events we organised at the end of the year – concerts, Christmas markets, exhibitions and sales – once again confirmed your tremendous generosity in a general context of withdrawal and hardship for many people. You can be sure that our Nepalese friends are very sensitive to your gestures, which we regularly inform them of; not forgetting them is in itself a great comfort to them.

Thank you to all our donors, organisations and friendly associations who support us both humanely and financially.

Bernard Simonet on 02 01 2017

Yadav accompanied the experts who advised demolition, and he also took advantage of his stay in Rapcha to refine these two initial projects, and his report left us somewhat confused: as a result of a probable administrative reorganisation, buildings will no doubt be erected in the Yagatchwy area, which no longer justifies the common house project; moreover, the problem of the water supply to the Bodu sector has still not been resolved, as it does not allow the essential earth mortar to be made. After consulting our Executive Committee, we decided not to postpone our action any further, as we have funds available, and to refocus on rebuilding individual houses. When two of our members visited the village in May, we were told that around fifteen families were unable to rebuild due to a lack of funds and were living in precarious conditions (under tarpaulins or in dangerously unstable houses). It should be noted that the financial aid provided to Nepal by the International Community during the summer of 2015 has still not been distributed by the Nepalese government….

Initially, our resources will not allow us to help more than 6 families. We will therefore choose them from the list provided by the MIC. Our friend Shokhal, who has been a competent and endearing cook for many of us on treks and who finds himself in this situation, will be one of them straight away, given his generosity (he donated his land for the construction of the dispensary). Marc Bechet and Jean Claude Raimbault will be visiting the area in October, accompanied by Vincent Pena, who has already worked as project manager on a similar project in Lapsibot for our friends from the MOINA Association. They will validate the families’ choices, introduce Vincent, explain our approach and prepare the worksite (demolition schedule, choice of site if it has to be modified from the old house, possibility of recovering materials, ordering wood, sheet metal for the roof, etc.). They will also decide on the purchase of good quality basic equipment (shovels, picks, trowels, etc.) and small power tools in Kathmandu.

This equipment will be left with the community for future rebuilding. They will donate half of the sum allocated to each family for these purchases, and the balance will be paid on completion of the work.

They will also study the arrangements for demolishing the first floor of the school building and the project to rebuild the Bodu school, which has not been abandoned but simply postponed.

In this way, the work will start at the beginning of 2017 (before the period of work in the fields, which requires a lot of manpower), under the supervision of Vincent Pena, from Asherman, and with the participation of the masons who trained at Lapsibot at our request.

We are continuing to meet with students, architects and engineers on a regular basis to validate a construction model so that local residents can adopt and reproduce this model of earthquake-resistant construction using local human and material resources.

We are also looking at ways of preserving water resources (recovery, storage, distribution). In line with our mission to improve health conditions, we will also be subsidising the construction of chimneys to evacuate smoke outside, in order to prevent eye and respiratory pathologies caused by smoke from the traditional central fireplace; these will be integrated into rebuilds or added to existing houses. Similarly, our initial exceptional effort to provide medicines following the earthquake and the resurgence of illnesses caused by precarious housing conditions has been extended. The 1,000-litre tank for the dispensary will be installed in the coming weeks, as soon as the state of the tracks allows it to be transported.

We are continuing to pay the salary of the science teacher at Basakhali Secondary School.

Next steps:

• Continuation of the rebuilding work so that all the inhabitants can benefit from decent housing,
• Completion of the Bodu school site,
• organisation of the demolition of the first floor of the Yagatchwy building.

To achieve this, we need to remain mobilised and active in order to raise the funds needed for these actions.

B.Simonet on 04 September 2016