VEC featured in GoMad Nomad Travel Mag
About Us
The work of Village Environment Community Gangkharka (VEC) is to help empower the populations of Nepal's Sindhupalchok District, specifically the areas of Helambu and Baruwa, to meet basic needs, and raise the standard of living in the villages of this isolated Himalayan region. By focusing on the issues of education and healtcare, VEC's aim is to perform basic development projects that respect the cultures and environment of the Sherpa, Yolmo, and Tamang populations that call this corner of the world their home. In the past, our work has taken the form of winter clothes distribution, projects to supply materials and build fences to protect crops, and the construction of water mills that villagers use to ground flour. Now, as the organization matures, we are underway on our biggest project to date.
Village Environment Community Gangkharka began construction on a boarding school in the Helambu village of Gangkharka. When completed in March 2009, the village will serve the education needs of 100 local children, as well as provide gainful employment for local people in the area. In the meantime, the issue of healthcare has not been abandoned. In October 2009, two nurses from Scotland, working with VEC diagnosed and treated approximately 200 of the region's sick and injured.
At the end of the day, our work is about cultural preservation. Our work not only brings education and healthcare to this area, it brings economic opportunity to an area where jobs are limited in scope and few in number. Our work is about empowerment, and our goal is to collaborate with the people of this region to improve their quality of life in a way that sees both economy and culture live sustainably and respectfully. Please consider a tax deductible donation to VEC through our friends at Wide Awake International.
A Message From The President
Namaste!
My name is Dorjee Netup Sherpa. I was born in a village called Gangkharka, in the Helambu region of Nepal. Until I was twelve, I worked in my village as a shepherd watching herds of yaks. I had no schooling until my parents sent my brothers and I to study at Kopan Monastery in Kathmandu.
I started this charity with the help of Mr. Richard Struthers in 1999. I worked with him as a trekking guide during his visit from Scotland. I would tell him about life in the villages and he took a passionate interest in the conditions there. Upon his return home, he invited me to the United Kingdom to talk about Helambu. I gave a series of lectures and presentations about my home, and talked about what can be done to improve living conditions there. This was the start of my work to raise the standard of living both in Gangkharka and throughout the region.
Since then, Richard and I have worked on several projects. Our first success was building fences to protect village crops from deer and wild boar. We then worked on irrigation and water mill projects that helped villagers make use of nearby rivers for grounding flour, irrigating crops, and increasing access to water during the winter. Encouraged by this success, Richard and I researched the possibility of building a new school in Helambu. There has always been a serious lack of education in the region and we were encouraged by the villagers to help them remove a serious point of hardship from their daily lives.
Currently in Helambu, many people are leaving the villages to take temporary jobs overseas. The villages are emptying and local culture is dying out. By educating children in the villages and increasing the number of medical clinics, our charity can help provide jobs and income to dozens of families in Helambu. This will encourage families to continue the practice of local customs, while empowering them in steady jobs as teachers, nurses, and leaders of their communities.
There is a lot of work to do. The boarding school we are building will provide quality education in a nurturing setting for local children, and I invite people from around the world to come to my village to work with us for the betterment of Nepal's rural communities. Thank you!
Sincerely,
Dorjee Netup Sherpa
President, VEC