They have never had to think twice before drinking a glass of water. However, in Nepal, many people do not have access to water, leave alone clean drinking water.[break]
We are all familiar with the pathetic problem facing the people in Nepal due to the lack of access to clean drinking water and that these people have had to fight many waterborne diseases. Making Lives Better is a student-run organization at Westminster College and they have recognized this dire need of the Nepali people.
Therefore, in May 2011, five members of this club are travelling to Nepal in order to install water purifiers in Okhaldhunga.
The organization believes that there is a significant correlation between access to clean drinking water and healthier children.
“Blessings in a Backpack” is another project planning to raise funds for poor students in Nepal’s rural areas.
Nepal, one of developing countries, also lags far behind many developing countries in literacy front.
Though the government provides free education to the underprivileged, there are still tens and thousands of children deprived of access to education because their parents do not earn enough to buy them school supplies.
Hence, as members of MLB at Westminster, we are planning to raise enough funds to fill their backpacks with supplies like notebooks, pencils, erasers and sharpeners. Our target groups are underprivileged children in the villages who are in dire need of these supplies.
With this project, we hope to reduce the financial burden on parents associated with opportunity cost of education of their children. This, we hope, will encourage the parents to send their children to school regularly and that they become productive citizens when they grow into adults.
To make these projects a success, MLB has continuously been conducting various events on our campus to raise funds. So far, the most successful event was Dine for Nepal.
It was a fundraising dinner. MLB sold tickets and served dishes like pulao, daal, choela, cauli, paratha, gajar ko haluwa, kaju ko barfi and the likes.
This course Nepali dinner was prepared by the 10 students who are currently attending Westminster College. They served the dinner to over a hundred people, including faculty members, staff, students and community members, who came not just to savor every mouthful of good food but also to support a great cause.
The other fundraising events that we have done so far are coin drives, jewelry sale and handicraft.
The team will arrive in Nepal on May 12 and will immediately start fundraising activities. Our aim is to install 20 purifiers in rural areas of Nepal. We are hoping to reach our target by reaching out to the corporate houses in the country for their assistance in helping uplift the standards of our people.
We are also planning a cloth donation drive by distributing clothes to needy ones.
In this way in the next three months, we want to positively affect the lives of as many people as we can and help them in all possible ways.
As global citizens we are always at service of people living in any part of the world under difficult circumstances. By launching this project, Westminster students are taking a step forward to live up to their college mission.
They believe that it is their duty to help those in need. And their choice is Nepal. Their motto is: “Together we can give the children in Nepal a better and healthier life, together we can work toward making lives bette.”
The writer is a student at Westminster College, Missouri.
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