Namlang is a 3 hours steep uphill walk from Tipeni Bazaar, which in turn is reached via a 4 hour bus journey to Melamchi from Kathmandu and an hours drive from Melamchi or 2.5 hours walk if the roads are damaged. The village is situated at roughly 1800m and serves around 400 households in the village. It has a rainy summer (JUN-AUG), quite a cold winter (DEC-FEB) and warm sunny days during the remaining months. The village has sporadic electric power supply.

Bhotenamlang school has around 500 students and 13 teachers- 6 supported by the government, and the remaining financed through the local community. It runs from grade 1 to grade 10 and also offers a Nursery class. The children are aged between 3-17. While most other Tamang villages do not have any schools at all or they mostly only go up to primary level, it is quite unique that the school in this poor but large Tamang village goes up to secondary level, mainly thanks to the efforts and team work of some of the key people in the villages and their leadership and co-ordination at the local level.

This big school has some of the most overcrowded classrooms in the region, with up to 90 students cramped into the same classroom. Until recently, there were not enough classrooms to serve all the grades offered, so each class had to stay at home for one day each week. Many of the classroom didn’t have enough desks and benches for all the children, forcing children to sit on the ground. People in the village place a high value on education, and children come to school with enthusiasm and a willingness to learn, despite the poverty of the region and the scarcity of resources at the school.

Namlang was one of the schools HELP identified in 2013 and the local community has remained very supportive of the ideas of improving educational quality. We believe that the support and encouragement of the community is vital for the sustainability and long-term development of the school.

So far, HELP/ Mondo has partnered with the school/ community in the following projects:

• Construction of 4 new classrooms that are under progress
• Commitment to support for a secondary level English teacher
• Library books
• Sports equipment support soon after which the school participated in the Himalayan Olympics.
• Classrooms management through supporting classroom furniture, white boards and Notice boards and Early Childhood Development room management
• Workshops and teachers training
• Sound system to help them organize their morning assembly
• Committed to support construction of a new toilet building

Current Project/s

• 4 new classroom building- construction phase completed, to be furnished as soon as possible to make them ready for use.
• New toilet block to start as soon as possible.
• Playground maintenance and compound fencing

Future Needs

• Teacher training
• Library facility upgrading
• Classrooms management- especially the lower classes
• Playground management
• Computer lab management