“It felt like the world was finished.”, Gorkha, Nepal –, In 2015, Anarda Gurung was an Assistant Health Worker at the health post in Laprak village in Gorkha District in north-central Nepal. When a massive earthquake struck Nepal on 25 April, Laprak – owing to its proximity to the epicenter in Barpak in the same district – was practically levelled. Anarda, who’d been at home when the quake hit,…

Ramechhap, Nepal:, In 1993, Dor Dev Ghimire had been walking home to his village in his native Ramechhap District in north-eastern Nepal when someone called out to him. This someone was from the Majhi or fishermen community that lived nearby, and she handed him a letter and asked if he could read it to her. Dor was aware of the general poverty that existed in the…

Ramechhap, Nepal:, Most people would struggle to tell Ram and Laxman apart. The twins are frequently told that they look like exact copies of one another, a resemblance amplified by the matching outfits they often wear. Besides their physical likeness, Ram and Laxman also share an enthusiasm for going to school. They are among the most regular students in the second…

Kavre, Nepal –, Badri Parajuli knows this place inside out. Badri had started teaching at Bachhaladevi Basic School in his home district of Kavrepalachowk in central Nepal 25 years ago. In that time, he’s become the head teacher here and one of the indispensable pillars of this institution. Every item and all facilities within the premises have been carefully…

Dolakha, Nepal, Jan 2016 –, 10-year-old Munal Basnet is excited about the arrival of a new calf. His intuition tells him that the cow will give birth in a few hours. But his sister Monika, 14, says it won’t happen until next month. Their discussion is interrupted, but not concluded by their grandmother’s call for morning meal. The conversation over the meal still hovers…

Ramechhap, Nepal, April 2016, — A week after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit central Nepal on 25 April 2015 Kabita Shrestha, a social worker in Manthali, the district headquarters of Ramechhap was out in the field in the surrounding villages following up with families that she had been checking up on  for some time. “I had to do something,” said Shrestha. "I knew that there…

March 2016: Gorkha, Nepal, “I love my daughter the most in the whole world,” said Amita Gurung, holding her baby daughter Arpita tightly in her arms. "But when I think of the day she was born, I feel like crying." That  was the day when a devastatnig earthquake shook central Nepal in April last year. Amita's village was at the epicenter of the quake. It was a dull Saturday…, ‘Earthquake! Earthquake!’, How the heavily pregnant Amita dragged herself out of the collapsing house when the whole world seemed to be rocking still feels like a bad dream for this young mother. In her Snan village of Barpak Village Development Committee (VDC) many people had gathered together and were retreiving foodstuff from the rubble of a village shop. A couple of…

It takes a village to immunize a child, March 2016:, It was an overcast morning in Barpak Village Development Committee (VDC). Clouds hung low in this VDC perched in a mountainous ridge of northern part of Gorkha District, almost 180 km away from Kathmandu. As a shrill voice of village messenger (locally known as katuwal) resonated the cobbled streets of the village, Manush Ghale, female community…, Earthquake No Bar for Immunizing Children, Dolakha District is the epicentre of another big Nepal earthquake of 12 May 2015. When the earthquake struck, Sajina Khatri Shrestha’s daughter Monishka was 3-month-old. Too scared to stay inside her house in Charikot, Dolakha, Sajina’s family took refuge in a nearby school building. Everything was destroyed by the earthquake- houses, schools,…, UNICEF Supports the Contagious Campaigns, UNICEF is supporting the government of Nepal to strengthen its immunization system and to achieve full immunization status by 2017. Barpak is among 1332 out of almost 4000 VDCs and Dolakha is among 17 out of 75 districts of Nepal which are declared fully immunized so far. UNICEF is working side by side with the government and other development…

Gorkha, Nepal –, As the nurse readies to take her blood pressure, Sunita Gurung maintains a protective hand on the basket beside her on the bench. Inside is her one-year-old daughter Ganga, who is drifting in and out of sleep in her little bed of blankets. Ganga was born right here in the birthing centre of the new health post in Barpak village in Gorkha District…,   Starting from scratch, By lunch time, the waiting room is already filling up. “We see around 30 to 40 patients a day on average,” says Amirendra Shah, Assistant Health Worker. “Most cases relate to respiratory problems, or women coming in for either antenatal or postnatal care visits.” Not too long ago, however, the facility would have struggled to serve even half as…,   A resilient structure, The 2015 earthquakes wrecked over 1,200 health facilities in the country, more than 80 per cent of which were located in 14 most-affected districts. UNICEF had first supported the Government of Nepal by providing medical tents as well as essential drugs, instrument and equipment. But the tents were a temporary solution, and UNICEF then took on the…, In safe hands, Finished with her check-up, Sunita carefully places the strap of the basket on her forehead, heaves it up, and prepares to leave. Her house is around a half-hour’s walk from the health post, she says, and she needs to get home in time to help prepare the afternoon meal.   “It was so difficult after the earthquake, because if you got really sick…

Nuwakot, Nepal , –  As 16-year-old Bikram Tamang places a pot of rice on the stove, his younger brother, Selkar (14), walks in the door with a handful of vegetables freshly picked from the garden. The two don’t speak much as they prepare the midday meal together in the kitchen of their newly rebuilt house in the remote Samari Village in the Nuwakot District, …, Nearly lost, These ambitions and hopes were very nearly buried under rubble when two massive earthquakes and numerous aftershocks struck Nepal in 2015. Nuwakot was one of the hardest-hit districts and the disaster tore apart not just the house the brothers were living in, but their family as well. Bikram and Selkar’s mother was among the many who did not…, A long way, On a balmy February afternoon, the siblings’ sister, Dolma, is all decked out in traditional wear to go to the Lhochhar festival, celebrating the Tamang community’s new year. Watching Selkar play with his little niece in the courtyard outside her rented room, she talks about how far her brothers have come in the past two years. “Right after the…