THE PANAUTI ECO-FARM PROJECT

    On 2nd of August 2012, three Rotaract members Rtr.Abhigya Maskey, Rtr.Liza Maharjan and Rtr.Sahara Sedhain along with 3 other high school friends, went for a community service project to the eco-farm home run by an organization named Mission Himalaya at panauti VDC of Kavre district. The orphanage has been established to provide shelter and education along with a proper home for the orphans in the district of Kavre along with some other children brought from the remote areas of the country. We spent two and a half days in the orphanage itself. 

   After an hour long bus ride and around 40 minutes of walking, we reached the eco-farm orphanage situated in the middle of the exotic greenery and lush vegetation of panauti. The orphanage seemed to be very well planned with the requirements of bathrooms, playground, dorms, volunteer rooms managed very well. However, the orphanage is still short of some minor requirements due to a lack of funds at the present time. The construction of the house and most of the basic features were complete but we were in charge of helping with the finishing touches such as white washing the walls, painting the children’s dorm and plastering some places that were left. We also got involved in gardening and leveling the road outside the building. Liza and Abhigya also went for a field visit to gather information about the possible children for the orphanage. Along with us, we also had 3 other foreign volunteers; Tom Young and his 2 sons from the UK, who were also contributing some of their valuable time to help out at the orphanage We were inspired and impressed by their dedication and goodwill, giving back to the society and working hard on a project based in another country. Some of us were really into painting whereas some enjoyed the gardening work. Our effective working style was really admired by the project owners themselves. Apart from the community service we got to explore some of the areas around and in panauti as well. Our long hours of hard work were always well rewarded by the delicious food provided by Sherpa dai who was in charge of the cooking.

The two days spent in Panauti were really rewarding for the orphanage as well as for us. We got a chance to exchange working ideas and skills with each other and learned to work effectively in groups along with getting a chance to experience some types of work we would probably never have given a thought to otherwise.