In the Chepang Gaon area RF is supporting three schools. We have supported these schools since 1997.
Since 2012 the village-school in Chepang Gaon has got three teachers and approximately 100 pupils. The schooling is from 1st -6th grade.
In 2000 we started an adult educational program in Chepang Gaon. It still exists. At that time there were 10 women and one man in the class and the women are still the most eager to learn.
In 2009 our teacher in the village-school in Chepang Gaon was paid a visit by two young men, who just graduated as teachers in Kathmandu. The touching thing about this story is that the two men had begun their schooling in Chepang Gaon and now wanted to return to their former village in order to teach.
In the beginning they were hardly paid for their teaching. What was important to them was 
that they gave something back from what they had received themselves. Later on we have made sure that the school is receiving an assistant teachers salary and at the same time the government is supporting with a teachers salary too. In Nepal there is an authority in law that the government is paying half the costs for a school, mind you that the school is already there, and that the local community is paying the other half. The national challenge is that there are still a lot of areas in Nepal where the local communities cannot afford the costs for schooling.
Further down the mountain, in approximately 1400 vertical meters, there is another school, that already in 1997 was relatively big with teaching from 1st to 10th grade. RF has supported this school since then with teaching resources, writing tools and small prizes for the best pupils. Beside that this village has received non-prescription medication as required.
In 1000 vertical meters the largest school in the area is located, Shree Rastriya School. Back in 1997, when Lars and Roshan were on their way up to Chepang Gaon, they started the forerunner to this school in a small cottage, together with a young teacher.
Today there are 18 teachers and 350 pupils and they teach from 1st to 10th grade. When we met the teachers in 2011 they were trying to gain the status of high school. The headmaster of the school today is the very same teacher who took part in starting the school back in 1997.
Yet again we experienced that the Nepali people are helping each other. Three young teachers, two women and one man, had returned home to work in the local community where they were brought up and went to school themselves. At the meeting we asked them in what way they needed our help. One after the other they got up and explained to us that although they had the teaching-qualifications that the government is claiming for getting a high school status, they were not able to live from the salary they were offered right now and as a consequence they were forced to search for jobs in other regions. On the spot we arranged that RF would support the school with an amount equal to one teacher’s salary to split among the three of them. Together with the salary they received from the local community, they would reach a salary level which made them stay. All this means that the school is getting closer to the high school standard which they want so very much.
The school has also started to build a dormitory so that the children who live far away will be able to stay overnight during the week and only go home in weekends and holidays.
*An average teachers salary in Nepal is approximately 4000 DKK annually.
* In Nepali legislation there is a law saying that if there is a school in a sudden area, the state is obliged to pay half the costs while the local community must pay the other half.