Hey one and all,

I will be going for a Community Service trip to Nepal with a team from SMU (Project Namaste II) at the end of the year to serve the community there in particular to help educate kids and reconstruct the school there (painting, maybe building something small, etc).We would also be constructing a library and improving the stoves there. The project then requires a lot of funds for us to make this success a major one. 1 way in which our fundraising will be done is through the "sale of postcards". These postcards are very special as one will not just be buying a postcard in itself but in fact these postcards will be filled by personal messages from the Nepali kids themselves and later posted from Nepal back to Singapore. What you see below here are some of the Nepali postcards. They are both beautiful and meaningful.

Therefore, one can think of it as if you made a donation and in gratitude, the Nepali kids decide to write you a "Thank you" message,because that is what it is. Do your part for charity. Contact me at 81007451 or email me at kelvyn.li.2005@socsc.smu.edu.sg for more enquires. Think about it. One good meal would more than exceed this amount already. Why not make a little 1 day sacrifice to help others more in need? It's definitely worth. Feel your heart. A lot of people have asked me how much to donate. Our team have discussed for it to be at least $10 per postcard but since it's for such a good cause and if you feel able enough, any amount more than $10 would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

- kelvyn

~Project Namaste~

There is a country in South East Asia, blessed with majestic mountains and unspoilt nature. It's scenery might be beautiful, but it's standard of living certainly is not. Let me introduce to you, Nepal, one of the most remote developing countries in the World.

This December, a group of SMU students will be going up to Nepal for a community involvement project (Project Namaste). You're probably wondering, why choose Nepal? Well, let me give you some background on this country: Nepal has a population of 28 million people, and a literacy rate of 50%. As you can imagine, most of the people are mired in abject poverty and find it difficult to escape the poverty cycle on their own.

Through this project, we hope to benefit the Nepali people and bring a glimmer of hope by aiding them in our own humble way.

The team in Project Namaste have a few plans which will be executed when we go to Nepal:

Firstly, we want to tackle the problem of illiteracy, by helping to teach the school children of this village that we are visiting. We will be coming up with a curriculum of simple English and maths. Also, we will be training the teachers in the school as many of them are ill-equipped to teach the children, due to poor language/linguistics and mathematical skills. Hence, by developing a curriculum and training the teachers, we hope to achieve a long-term impact through this sustainable education plan.

Secondly, the educational facilities in the school are delapidated and in need of refurbishment. It is not a place fit for school children to study! Hence, we wish to beautify the school and give it a fresh new look by painting its exteriors and decorating the interiors with murals. By doing so, it will create a more conducive and warm environment for the school children to study in.

Thirdly, the school in the village is facing overcrowding. Hence there is a strong need for new facilities. The team in Project Namaste has decided to fund entirely, the construction of a brand new library for the school. We have also contracted a local construction company in Nepal to do the job, so that the funds for construction will also flow into the local economy.

Lastly, we will be introducing the concept of an improved, new, stove. The current situation in the village is such: The old stove used by the villagers requires a lot of firewood and produces alot of smoke and soot. As a result, this forces the villagers to cut a huge amount of firewood for daily use. This has worsened the deforestation that is occuring in and around the village areas. Also, smoke inhalation from the stove has led to respiratory problems in the people. With our improved stove which requires less firewood and produces less smoke, it will certainly reduce the respiratory health problems faced by the villagers and eased the deforestation problem. Hence this stove is important as it is environmentally-friendly, and also less damaging to health.

We have many big plans for Project Namaste, but this plans don't come free. Even though SMU will be subsidising us, we still have to raise funds required for this project as it is not enough.

There are 2 ways in which we'll be trying to raise funds.

1) Corporate sponsorship. However, this is a difficult route to take. Most corporate sponsors are only interested in large-scale, island-wide events in which they can get maximum publicity. Thus, small-scale, student-initiated projects like ours tend to get overlooked.

Thus, we are banking on the method below...

2) Donations from well-meaning private sponsors.

To find out more about how you can donate to us. Read the post above!

-huiling