This is a group picture of 32 children from a poor village in Chitwan, Nepal. Each of them just received new school stationery including books, copybooks, pencils, erasers, a woolen hat and some biscuits.
This was a project entitled 'Pay-It-Forward Nepal', and it was done in collaboration with Bohemia, our dreadlock salon.
The term ‘Pay It
Forward’ is an expression for describing the beneficiary of a good deed of repaying
proceeds to others instead of the original benefactor.
This project took
place from May to October 2015. Through this initiative, customers and friends were
encouraged to donate pieces of jewelry that they do not want anymore, and were
put up for sale to other customers. People who were interested in buying this
second hand jewelry were free to place their own price from €1
to €5.
“Luckily my family and
friends were not affected by the earthquake, but friends of friends were. As it
is my country, I felt I need to do something to help”, said Nakul Gautam, the
owner of Bohemia.
To buttress his point,
he said, “In 5 months we collected 70 euros, which we topped up to 100. Perhaps
in Malta it might not seem to be a large sum, but in Nepal it becomes a
meaningful sum in a poor jungle village. The money was used to buy new school
books, erasers, pencils, biscuits and woolen hats for 32 children in a small jungle village
of Chitwan, 5 hours trek from Shaktikhor.