OUR PROGRAMS
EDUCATION
Nothing looks more clearly toward the future than education. And nothing else has education’s power to transform lives. For Nepali children, Sherpas, and village girls at risk to traffickers —for any child facing daunting odds because of caste, gender, disability or poverty—education offers a path forward to opportunity and hope, and the freedom to make choices in a world that will almost certainly be very different from their parents’.
Our mission is to erase the obstacles that keep kids from going to school. A school might be too damaged or small: build classrooms. Tuition could be too high: provide a scholarship. A child may live too far away: arrange for boarding. Even help with school supplies and uniforms can be essential to allow students to succeed. And when they do, we all win.
HEALTH AND DENTAL CARE
Life-saving. For many in Nepal, healthcare is unaffordable and out of reach. We help children and families, many of whom have never seen a doctor before, to receive medical care.
Life-changing. Oral health is important, too. Children sponsored by TF receive routine dental care and related services such as orthodontics as a part of our programs.
STOP CHILD TRAFFICKING
Each year, as many as 20,000 girls from the poorest parts of rural Nepal are trafficked. They and their families are tricked with false promises of good jobs or lured by proposals of marriage from handsome strangers. They end up in brothels, in homes and factories as slaves, or forced into child marriage, their young lives cut short by trauma and abuse.
How can this happen? Grinding poverty, caste discrimination, and the belief that women have little value: a girl is an extra mouth to feed until she is married off. If she can leave home to earn money for the family, they may be too desperate to look closely at what her fate might really be.
Education is the way. If a girl has value, in her own eyes and her family’s, she will not “go missing”. We give girls value by educating them.
TF goes into the villages to identify the girls most at risk and places them in school so they are safe. We educate the girls in English so that they and their families understand the realities and dangers of trafficking and create in the girls a sense of trust so they can reach out if trouble does arise.
BABY ORPHANAGE IN KATHMANDU
For many years TF has supported Bal Mandir Orphanage in Kathmandu by providing clothing, supplies, toys and other necessities. Home to around 100 orphaned children ranging in age from infants to age 16, our support and regular visits by volunteers always bring hugs and smiling faces as the children enjoy diapers, new clothing, books, toys and treats. In close cooperation with the wonderful orphanage staff TF strives to provide needed items especially blankets and diapers for the infant wing where young babies and toddlers are cared for.
NAMCHE BAZAR AND HELPING HANDS
Home Away From Home is a private boarding hostel located in Namche Bazaar in the Everest Region of Nepal. TF sponsors poor Sherpa children from remote villages in the region to attend school in Namche while living in the hostel. Because the remote villages often have no schools beyond class 5 and many of the families are mere subsistence farmers TF brings them safety from trafficking, hope and opportunity.
SPECIAL PROJECTS
Over the years TF has funded many different special projects. Following the earthquakes of 2015 funding was provided to rebuild two schools near Melamchi, just north of Kathmandu. Other projects include providing dining hall furniture for a retirement home for Tibetan refugees, installing a new water system and equipment for a local medical clinic, bringing hydroelectric power to the remote village of Chyangba as well as numerous other special projects. TF volunteers are continuously looking for ways to bring help and hope where it can do the most good.
RECENT PROJECT UPDATES
