After visiting a disaster management project I travelled to another place that UMN has been working where I met a boy called Bhim. Bhim lives in a village in Ramguni and it is probably one of the poorest places I have ever been to.
The houses are made from straw and cow dung and the children were dirty, clothed in rags or strips of cloth.
The families have no land of their own and work every day in the hope that they will earn enough money to feed themselves. It was a very humbling experience.
Bhim is one of two boys in the village who, through a UMN scholarship, has been enabled to go to school.
When they started at school they were the only children in the village ever to go to school. They are now in grade 9 and other families have started to send their children to primary school because of the change they have seen in these two boys.
Bhim is part of a project run by RYC, a Nepali NGO. As well as going to school he is being sent on short training courses to learn about HIV and Aids and how to tell others about it.
In his village, he tells the other children, young people and adults about HIV and Aids - what causes it and how to prevent it.
As soon as we arrived, Bhim came up to see us, he was so proud that he had been chosen for this programme and was really keen to share with us what he had been doing in his village.
He ran back to his house and came out with the certificate he had gained after attending the HIV and Aids training course and proudly showed it to me.
This district has a really high rate of HIV and Aids infection compared to many other areas in Nepal. RYC has trained a network of 100 youth peer educators who are working within their own communities, teaching about HIV and Aids.
UMN has helped RYC by providing training for those who train the peer educators in facilitation and presentation skills as well as in technical knowledge of the issues.
UMN have been working with RYC for three years and in a number of different areas - one of which is HIV and Aids.
RYC is now almost at a stage where it is able to be sustainable on its own. It has already attracted a three-year funding from other agencies and the local government.
Please join us in thanking God for:
- The peer educators, like Bhim, whose work is starting to have a real impact in their community and the lives that are changed as a result.
- The 'gate' project and the joy of the villagers in being able to stay in their village during the monsoon this year.
- The success and safety of Nic's trip.
Please pray for:
- UMN staff living and working in this and other remote clusters, they are often away from their families for long periods of time.
- Bal Kumari, the new cluster team leader, as she settles into her role and Binod, the busy finance and administration advisor.
- The work on the 'gate' near the village that floods - that it would be completed before the monsoon starts in a few weeks.
- The two new church groups in this area that UMN are starting to partner with, that they would catch a vision of how to show God's love to people in their communities.