Dear Friends of NAG – Namaste!

The turn of the year 2022/2023 at NAG was quiet, the waves of the previous two years having definitely calmed down. In February the “crazy Cheib” (crazy guy) rode into NAG on his bike.  Ivo Schär, alias “Borderzibi”, reached his destination on 19.2.2023 and raised over CHF 9000.00 on his way from Kriens to Kathmandu.  This amount, along with some help from a few NAG-ers, enabled him to buy 10 bicycles in different sizes, in Kathmandu. Of course, the bikes were immediately tried out on a superb, but tough, tour in the nearby national park and the enthusiasm was great!  After school, in addition to the basketball and climbing courses, there is now also a cycling course for the NAG students.

Throughout the year we had visits from all over the world. Some visitors simply came to see the NAG for themselves, others stayed longer and organised great projects with the children. Highlights included the climbing courses with Ola Przybysz, the music workshop with Ross Green and the circus week with Katrin Rossi. All these people help to ensure that the children at the NAG can experience an incredible number of great things and learn a lot as a result. Thank you very much!

In the NAG and at school, the focus in 2023 remained very much on the environment. The aim is to teach children and young people how to treat our environment with certain awareness and show them alternatives.  Instead of using plastic bags, carrier bags are sewn at NAG and waste is not simply thrown on the street or into the river, but collected, separated and disposed of correctly.  Various workshops were held on this subject and NAG continues to organise waste collection days in the surrounding area to raise awareness of the issue among the population.

Our two major projects continued to run at full speed in 2023.  Since the start of the successful “Teacher Training” project in 2021, we have already worked with 15 schools.  In the summer some Year 12 students were able to travel to one of our partner schools for a total of five weeks to work there as classroom assistants. The project management has now decided that school leavers will also be travelling to a remote school next summer to support the teachers there.  The NAG students are now being trained and prepared in courses run by Manjita Koirala and Jessica Winsor.

The “Mobile Clinic” team was also regularly active.  At the end of each month, outside of the rainy season, our team, led by Sangdolma and Srijana, travelled with Raju to remote areas around Kathmandu to provide the population there with essential supplies.

After the earthquake on 3 November 2023, our “Mobile Clinic” team went on a large and lengthy mission to the affected area.  With the support of two Nepalese foundations, they provided medical care, warm sleeping bags, blankets and warm clothing to people in a remote village, whose population mainly belongs to the lowest caste. Unfortunately, it takes a very long time to rebuild the houses in this area – and NAG helps far and wide.

Naturally, NAG celebrated its 30th anniversary in style. On 1 September, the NAG members enjoyed a big and beautiful party at NAG and many former NAG members attended.  The theme was “Timetravel” and the children once again showed their incredible creativity by creating wonderful costumes.

The highlight of this year for us in Switzerland was undoubtedly our anniversary event, 30 Years of NAG! It was obvious that this should be marked in style. And so we celebrated properly in the Umweltarena (Environment Arena) in Spreitenbach.  Reto Brennwald interviewed Nicole Thakuri Wick about the beginnings of the aid organisation and Jamuna Khadka talked about her childhood in the NAG and her job as “manager of the NAG secretariat”.  Foundation Board President Sophie Winkler bade farewell to Roland Melliger, Head of Finance for five years, and welcomed his successor, Michèle Wick, who has known the NAG very well since the relief organisation’s inception. Afterwards our visitors were able to engage in personal discussions over an apéritif.

We are delighted about this and would like to thank all our loyal visitors who came in such large numbers to celebrate with us.  A big thank you also to everyone else who generously supports NAG throughout the year – without our donors, NAG would not exist.

Time and again, we receive valuable financial support from donors for certain major projects. We would like to thank them from the bottom of our hearts.  Today we want to highlight a special donation, because it has touched us deeply.  A school class collected money for the NAG and this donation enabled us to refurbish our outdated music room.  A huge thank you!

And finally, very importantly: if you would prefer to receive our annual letter and newsletter digitally, simply let us know your e-mail address and send it to christine.winkler@nagnepal.com with the note “Newsletter”.  This will help us to save paper and postage and the resources saved will benefit the NAG and the environment.

The entire NAG team wishes you all a happy and successful year!

On behalf of the NAG Foundation Board

Nicole Thakuri-Wick                               Sophie Winkler
Foundress NAG                                        President of the NAG Foundation Board