Dolakha, Nepal -, Abiraj Shiwakoti pulls a cloth bag hanging off of a hook outside his home in Kalinchowk in Dolakha District and lays out the contents on the floor one by one. First comes a sheaf of important documents encased in a plastic file, followed by a bottle of water, a pen and a torch, among other items. This is a ‘jhatpat jhola’ or a go-bag, packed ready…

Bhaktapur, Nepal –, 12-year-old Thakur Chepang is the first to arrive in his class. In the time that the first session is set to begin, he carefully takes in the writings on the charts and posters in his class room’s walls. It has only been about a month since he started at the Chitrapur Basic School in Suryabinayak, Bhaktapur district, and the rooms of this school…

Rautahat, Nepal –, Anarjit and Rahul Kumar Ram are both eager to show off their newly-acquired skills in handwashing. “You need to rub your hand over the back of your other hand five times like this, and then turn it over and do the same on the other side,” 12-year-old Rahul explains, as Anarjit, 10, nods solemnly in agreement. Two days ago, on 16 July, the two…, In the crosshairs, For the past quarter of a century, Gaur Municipality has undergone floods on a yearly basis, owing to its proximity to the Lal Bakaiya and Bagmati Rivers, both prone to overflowing during the monsoon season. It had been deeply impacted in the last major disaster in August 2017. This year too, water levels in both rivers had been rising steadily…, Local-level response, Walking through the narrow, muddy lanes of Sabagadha, one can still see damp streaks on the houses, testament to just how high floodwaters had risen. Road access to the village and many other parts of the district had been severely affected for several days, and communications systems were down, rendering rescue and relief work challenging. Still…, A second disaster, Jamuni Devi, 30, sweeps a disparaging hand towards her front yard, now a mess of trash and wet straw. She lives in a small settlement of ‘Dailt’ (traditionally marginalized community) families, another area in Gaur deeply affected by the flood. Jamuni and her family – including four children – had taken temporary shelter in a building owned by…

Okhaldhunga, Nepal –, Mandira Kafle, teacher at the Parijat Smriti Basic School in Okhaldhunga District in eastern Nepal, asks student Nishan Rai to come up with some four-syllable words in Nepali. Eleven-year-old Nishan thinks a moment before reciting: “ Jha-la-ma-la (bright lights), Da-la-da-la ( swamp) .” “How about three syllables?” the teacher follows up. “ Ka-la-…

“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,…

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…