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Background on Nepal
-Civil War - Impact
of Poverty - Conditions Where
Children are From
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Background on Nepal
Landforms Map of Nepal
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Living with Acute Poverty
Thrangu Rinpoche's schools serve the needs of children who come from the far north of Nepal.
The areas these kids come from are high altitude, and subject to climate extremes. In Himalayan villages, there are no roads, no electricity, no telecommunication, no running water, no sanitation, no health care and no schools. Most of the people are illiterate. Their births are unrecorded and so are their children's. They are, to all intents and purposes, non-existent, invisible people.
Himalayan folkare semi-nomadic yak/goat herders or subsistence farmers. At these altitudes survival is extremely hard. The loss of an animal or a bad crop can mean the family won't make it through another year. Under such harsh conditions, 71% of mountain children over the age of 5 must work to ensure the family's survival.
Nepal was closed to the outside world until the 1950s, and had a late start in economic development compared with the rest of S. Asia. After decades of absolute monarchy, Nepal finally moved to parliamentary democracy in 1991. A strong start was made in public reforms, including education for the masses but democracy was derailed by corruption in the highest places and a combination of hunger and neglect elsewhere. Corruption is endemic. The international corruption watchdog, Transparency International recently rated Nepal as 121 out of 159...a 2.5 score on teh scale of 10, for clean government. The reforms were brought to a halt in 1994 as a result of political instability and civil war broke out in 1996. Civil war raged for ten years.
A peace accord was struck in April 2006, and the Maoist rebels (now mainstreamed) and the Maoist rebels hold the balance of power in parliament. They're out of the jungle and into mainstream politics, now, although they seem to be having trouble reigning in their shock troops...the Young Communists League. In nationwide elections, the people chose the Maoist party over all others...but only gave them 30% of the seats. The other parties were roundly trounced, but they also won seats. It is thought that the people wish for the change the Maoists promise (particularly an end to the oppressive caste system) but in their wisdom, the people elected representatives from the other parties as a kind 'governor' on the Maoists' power. There is hope in Nepal now, but it is tempered by fear that the Maoists have not given up their brutal ways, and totalitarian philosophy. Meanwhile the UN Human Development Index published in December 2007 showed what all of us on the ground know very well: costs are going up, income is falling and Nepal has slipped down a few notches in the poverty index, ranking below Bangaladesh and Sierra Leone. It's common wisdom that only the Maoists could clean up the corruption that blights Nepal. One other good sign: the Maoists say they will remove customs taxes for incoming goods meant for charities. (The previous arrangement was a heyday for the Customs officials...they set the rate of tax (outrageous, even on donated goods) and if we didn't pay, they got the goods.