Update: A trek to Makalu and the House of Prosperity in Nepal

Incredible progress made, but some more steps needed to be taken

We are pleased to report that great progress has been made at the Sam­rid­hi Ghar (the House of Prosperity/​Safe House) that many of you donat­ed to in order to help women in the Makalu region of Nepal that are chal­lenged by domes­tic abuse. Below is a let­ter from Deana Zabal­do and Nan­cy Porten, the foundesr and Direc­tors of Chang­ing Lives Nepal, who along with her amaz­ing staff have been the dri­ving force behind this project its success. 

As we soon will be enter­ing the third year of this project we are hap­py to have the con­tin­ued sup­port of All The Sky Foun­da­tion and a match­ing fund up to $15,000. With this addi­tion­al fund­ing and some good news below about resources for a per­ma­nent build­ing; we hope that the Safe House will be self-sus­tain­ing mov­ing for­ward into its fourth year of oper­a­tion. To this end, sup­port from the local gov­ern­ment agen­cies has been pos­i­tive. Read on about the trek, an update from Deana and help us reach our goal of rais­ing $15,000.

Join the trek and Moun­tain Mad­ness will match dona­tions up to $1,500 total.

DONATE NOW

“Dear Mark,

Hope this finds you all well and enjoy­ing the start of spring! We want­ed to give you an update on our safe house activ­i­ties over the last few months. Hap­py to say that every­thing is pro­gress­ing very well! The num­ber of women at Sam­rid­hi Ghar ebbs and flows, and right now we are sup­port­ing 5 women in need.

The Safe House recent­ly brought in a train­er with 15 years expe­ri­ence at a cen­tral gov­ern­ment women’s shel­ter for a 2‑day ses­sion with our staff, SODEC board mem­bers, and rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the local police, hos­pi­tal, and munic­i­pal­i­ty. She helped our team design and insti­tute a case man­age­ment sys­tem to begin track­ing the women for 2 years after they leave our facil­i­ty and pro­vide them with greater fol­low-on resources. The train­ing was a suc­cess and helped not only cre­ate the sys­tem but also devel­oped rela­tion­ships between our staff and all the nec­es­sary gov­ern­ment offi­cials. In addi­tion, the local gov­ern­ment allo­cat­ed $7500 to be issued in small grants this year to sup­port eco­nom­ic activ­i­ties for women leav­ing the SH. These grants will help sup­port our women in gen­er­at­ing income by pro­vid­ing start­up funds for them to devel­op a small busi­ness in areas like veg­etable farm­ing or open­ing a small sundry shop. 

In addi­tion, we are hop­ing to start con­struc­tion of a per­ma­nent build­ing lat­er this year or ear­ly next year! Just a few weeks ago, SODEC secured a land dona­tion from the local Nepali gov­ern­ment for a per­ma­nent build­ing. Over the past 6 years, SODEC has also worked with a Cana­di­an INGO, Anoth­er Brick in Nepal (ABIN), which has suc­cess­ful­ly built 4 schools in Sankhuwasab­ha Dis­trict. ABIN has gra­cious­ly offered to build and be the pri­ma­ry fun­der of a per­ma­nent safe house build­ing for the women of Nepal- many thanks for this!

All The Sky’s and Moun­tain Mad­ness’ sup­port in bring­ing this ground­break­ing project into being has been essen­tial! With the start-up grant and the 3‑year com­mit­ment of funds that you’ve pro­vid­ed, we’ve been able to prove the con­cept, estab­lish oper­a­tions, gar­ner deep­er com­mit­ment from the local gov­ern­ment (includ­ing the recent land dona­tion), and now secure a con­struc­tion com­mit­ment from ABIN for a per­ma­nent home. We couldn’t have done all this with­out you!

So grate­ful for all of the sup­port of your donors and MM in bring­ing this pro­gram to life and look­ing for­ward to anoth­er suc­cess­ful year!

Warm­ly,

Deana & Nancy/​Chang­ing Lives Nepal”

Pho­tos: Soci­ety Devel­op­ment Center

Safe House Project Overview

Sam­rid­hi Ghar (House of Pros­per­i­ty), is a col­lab­o­ra­tive project between Moun­tain Mad­ness, Chang­ing Lives Nepal, and All The Sky Foun­da­tion to serve the women of Nepal expe­ri­enc­ing domes­tic vio­lence and finan­cial hard­ship. As a team we have a proven track record of suc­cess­ful­ly launch­ing char­i­ta­ble pro­grams with strong com­mu­ni­ty sup­port, and Moun­tain Mad­ness Guide Deana Zabal­do will be bring­ing decades of region­al exper­tise to estab­lish the project. Our work con­tin­ues with the local hos­pi­tal, police, and com­mu­ni­ty, and we are thrilled with the progress thus far. Sur­vivors of domes­tic vio­lence are also being offered coun­sel­ing for emo­tion­al trau­ma, sup­port for med­ical and legal ser­vices, and tran­si­tion sup­port to live independently.

The Safe House also pro­motes height­ened aware­ness through­out the local com­mu­ni­ties about women’s rights as well as the under­ly­ing caus­es of vio­lence against women. In align­ment with All The Sky’s mis­sion, aware­ness pro­grams will include reach­ing men as well as women in order to increase the over­all under­stand­ing of gen­der-based vio­lence with the inten­tion of address­ing the root causes.

DONATE NOW

All dona­tions are ful­ly tax-deductible and will be matched up to $15,000 through a gen­er­ous grant from All The Sky Foun­da­tion to ensure this pro­gram reach­es the start-up goal of $30,000 and launch­es successfully!

Makalu Fundraiser Trek — 18 days including all travel time!

If you dream of return­ing to Nepal or vis­it­ing for the first time, join us on our fundrais­ing trek to Makalu Base Camp (Nov 4 – 21, 2023), includ­ing a vis­it to the Safe House to see your dona­tion at work if you donat­ed. Dona­tions are not required to join this trek, but encour­aged. Trekking in the Makalu Barun Nation­al Park will be sure to pro­vide adven­ture and amaz­ing views of this mas­sive peak, shown here on the left from our Gokyo Lakes Trek.