Nine years ago, during a trek in the Khumbu region, Faith and Anthony met Netra, then teaching at a school in Lukla, en route to Everest base camp. They have corresponded with him since and have helped Netra realize his dream of attending university in Kathmandu where .he first received a BA and in 1998 his MA in math.
Another dream of his and of theirs was to accompany him on a visit to his family for the Dipwali Festival that same year.
Netra is of the Rai culture, a farming caste which follows most of the Hindu traditions but which has many of it’s own also. His home village of Norung is situated in the high hills due East of Kathmandu and South of the Everest region. It is reached by a 45 minute flight to the tiny airstrip of Lamidanda followed by a two day trek along steep, rough trails.
During that incredible visit, they agreed to pay for the finishing of the school building to furnish it and to provide the salary for a badly needed second teacher on an ongoing basis. The village committee decided that their next priority was for electric lighting. Their decision was confirmed through a survey conducted to all the 45 homes in the village. Fortunately, around that time, Faith and Anthony met with Dave Irvine-Halliday from the University of Calgary, who had devised and installed very efficient lighting systems in several Nepali villages, using white light emitting diodes instead of conventional light bulbs. We decided that in this village, for a slightly higher cost, solar power, rather than the pedal generators of Dave’s invention, would be preferable.