Sunrise Children's Association Donations

Sunrise Children's Association

Our History

SCAI was formally established in July 2005 after its founders Emma Taylor, Michaela Killips and Sarah Kemp, were inspired by a group of children they met while volunteering at an orphanage in Kathmandu in 2004. Whilst a few of these children were orphans, many had simply been abandoned by their families or sent from their homes in rural areas to orphanages in Kathmandu in the hope of a better education.

After a short time in Nepal, the founders discovered that due to political conflict over the preceding ten years, poor economic conditions and various social issues, literally thousands of children had been orphaned, abandoned, forced into child labour or left to fend for themselves in the increasingly crowded streets of Kathmandu.

Some of the children have been fortunate enough to have ended up in well run homes where the children are cared for, educated properly and where there are genuine attempts to re-connect and re-integrate children with their families where possible. Others have sadly ended up in homes where the children’s basic rights and needs are not met and where the children are used to earn money for orphanage owners or, worse, are sold to child traffickers. Many of these children come from remote villages and are cut-off from their families, sometimes for years and in some cases permanently.

Partnership with NGO Sunrise Orphanage Nepal

During her initial 3 months in Nepal in early 2004, Emma met a wonderful Nepalese woman, Sangita Bhandari, who would share her vision of re-connecting and re-integrating the children that had families willing and able to care for them, and creating a loving and nurturing home for those that didn’t. Together they established NGO Sunrise Orphanage, also in July 2005, along with a dedicated committee of seven Nepalese men and women, all of whom remain involved to this day.

Since establishing Sunrise Orphanage in July 2005, the Sunrise team have gone on to develop Education Scholarship Programs which support around 400 children and Community Training and Development Centres which have trained over 600 students. See Our Work for further details.

Sunrise Orphanage Committee (NGO)

Sunrise Orphanage is run by a committee of seven Nepalese men and women, led by Chairperson Sangita Bhandari. With the exception of one committee member who moved overseas, the committee has been in place since its establishment in July 2005, a testament to their dedication to our work and the strong partnership with SCAI.

In addition to the committee, Sunrise has some valued advisors, such as Legal Advisor Dhurba Parajuli.

On a daily basis, our projects are run by various local staff:

Sunrise Orphanage

There are 8 full time live in carers, who not only undertake all of the daily household chores such as cooking and cleaning, but importantly are there for the children around the clock to provide them with the love, care, support and encouragement that resembles a natural family environment.

In addition to our full time carers we have some wonderful part time staff including Rehabilitation Therapist Surendra Bajacharya, tutor Bijana Bhandari, thanka painting teacher Kamansingh Lama, music teacher Ram Kumar Bimal and dance teacher Kalpana Shrestha.

Education Scholarship Programs

These programs are monitored by various staff from the respective local areas. Sunmaya Tamang, Daniel Chandra Pun and Sita Siwakoti are core members of the team, with the support of 5 tutors. Monitoring involves regular visits to the children’s home and schools and co-ordinating group sharing and counselling sessions for then children, parents, teachers and other relevant community members.

Community Training Centres

Our wonderful team of trainers include Sita Bhandari, Shanti Ghimire and Uma Magar (sewing) and Aashish and Sara (computer and literacy classes). Not only do they provide training at basic and advanced levels, but they are instrumental in growing the centres and providing an environment where students can come together and support each other on a broader level.

Website: www.scai.org.au
Email: Emma Taylor - President - [email protected]
Phone: +977 98033 70997 (Nepal)
Donate: www.givenow.com.au/sunrisechildrensassociation

---

Sunrise News

---

 A Safe Haven for the Children of Nepal

If you are looking for, or know people who may be looking for, somewhere to make a donation before the end of the financial year, Sunrise is always undertaking exciting new opportunities and we would greatly welcome your support!

As you may know, we recently moved into our new children’s home and school which we have spent the past 6months building. The school is a joint venture with the local community of Gurje where until now there has been only education provided at a very basic level, in Nepali language and from class 1-8.

We have now added pre-school (Nursery and Kindergarten) and class 9 and 10, all in English language which is what all of the private schools teach in and which many of the government schools are moving towards.

We are now supporting 258 students, but still need help funding the new teachers.

We ONLY need $2000/mth (or $24,000/yr) to fund 14 new teachers!

So make a one off donation, or sponsor a teacher ($143/mth) – a life changing contribution for these children AND its tax deductible!

Donations over $2 can be made via www.givenow.com.au/sunrisechildrensassociation

---

Sunrise Children's Association Need Your Help

---

 WE STILL NEED 8 MORE $46/MONTH SPONSORS!

On the 1st May we opened a new “ Transition Home for College Kids”. In brief, in July/August 11 youth from Sunrise will be going into year 11 and 12, called ‘college’ here in Nepal as traditional schooling only goes up until year 10. Their class 10 finished at the end of March and they are waiting for their final SLC (student leaving certificate) results from the government board (similar to year 12 in Aust). They had 1 month to go back to their villages (April) then moved into the home on 1st May, with one of our Sunrise staff members Angur Bhandari.

Why the new home? After monitoring the progress of 7 teens that left Sunrise over the past 12-24 months, we found that most have struggled with the significant transition from Sunrise to independent living or living with relatives. We have found that some have not had enough worldly experience to make such a large transition and they have faced challenges such as a lack of financial and emotional support, discipline and guidance from family or the local community in which they now living. This has resulted in lack of motivation, stress, and anxiety and in some cases a decline in academic performance by the youth. We hope the new transition home will help them slowly transition to a life outside Sunrise Orphanage, so that on completion of year 12 (or equivalent tertiary study) they are fully equipped to live with relatives or independently in the community and lead a happy successful life.

In brief, the main requirements for the home that differentiate it from Sunrise Orphanage are:
· They must all work part time (50% of their salary goes into their personal bank account, 50% they can use for personal needs or use to support their family which is often expected here)
· They must run the household themselves, working out their own rosters for cooking, cleaning, shopping etc
· They are living in a typical Nepali flat, so have other families upstairs and downstairs, rather than a totally separate compound like at Sunrise Orphanage
· In this 3 months before college (May,June,July), they are expected to start their part time jobs and are also encouraged to do some work experience/vocational training that will increase their chances of getting into the colleges they want or relevant to their future careers.

And so far its working well! As well as being happy:
-3 are doing a Science bridging course 6 mornings a week to help them get into a good Science college (and in afternoon home schooling our Sunrise kids while waiting to move into new home/school that we have just built)
-1 is doing chef school in morning, job training in a kitchen in a hotel in Thamel for rest of the day
-2 are doing dance classes
-2 are working in a nice cafe (want to work in hospitality/hotel management)
-4 just finished yr 11 exams last week, so will now start looking

If anyone is interested in sponsoring one of our teens, please contact [email protected].
A small (tax deductible!), very worthwhile investment in the future of these amazing teens.

For more information on this worthwhile cause please visit www.scai.org.au.

---