The Friends of Arhaus Children’s Home
Safe & Free Education in the Everest Region
Summary
The Friends of Arhaus Children's Home is the first home of its kind in the Everest region to provide a safe and quality place to live, especially for orphaned, abandoned, and highly vulnerable children at severe risk from trafficking, forced child labor, and other serious abuses. The Home provides the gifts of education, security, peace, and love in a healthy living environment.
Challenges:
The children in remote Himalayan communities have been badly affected by the devastating Nepal earthquake of 2015 and right after that by the Covid-19 pandemic. Most of the trekking porters, single and vulnerable women and daily wage worker lost their jobs; they need our support to keep their children safe and to continue their formal education.
Our project has deep connections and bonds with the local community members and the area’s culture and geography. We are working together with local community members to protect and educate children as well as deepen their relationships. In essence, during their education, the children are not alienated from their social background, language, or culture - in fact, they receive support to value it.
Sustainability
This project will help to build a strong community and, in the long term, these children will give back and support the local community with new ideas and opportunities. Community responsibility will be more developed and activated to improve or even end the problems faced by children today.
In support of this, from the very beginning of all projects, we always involve local community members. By providing jobs for them, employing their resources, and with their active participation in other projects such as growing foods and continuing to sustain projects for which we train them, the communities develop more pride and self-respect and take ownership, ensuring their continued success and accomplishment.
The Small World builds its own schools to provide free and quality education in remote Himalayan regions; we invite other children from the Everest region as well. In the future, we plan to build a combination home and school on a site. At our Home, the children learn English because such proficiency can help to create more opportunities for a positive impact at the local and global levels. However, our hope is that the children will be motivated to accelerate local progress, create innovations, and help to bring dynamic change for all in their local communities.
Long-Term
Our long-term goal is to provide a safe place for children in the remote Himalayan communities with the opportunity for a quality education that teaches and employs English in the curriculum; in this way, the children become proficient in both reading and writing which will expand their opportunities both locally and internationally. We believe that if our children are educated, they will do the rest!
