The devastating 2015 earthquake was followed by more than 300 smaller aftershocks. Thousands of people lost their lives and many more lost their homes and livelihoods. Three months after the catastrophe, the Tara Namaste Foundation travelled to Nepal to provide emergency aid in the form of food, blankets and emergency shelter in the areas most severely affected by the quakes.
Our efforts took us to Ghyalchok in the Gorkha District, around 3.5 hours away from the capital, Kathmandu. The area is rather poor, and families live far apart from one another. Many people farm their own small plots of land. This is how they feed themselves, and they can sometimes sell their harvest at the local market.
When the earthquake first struck Nepal on 25 April 2015, one of the two epicentres was in the Gorkha District. Many houses collapsed like cardboard boxes in just seconds. Thousands of people and animals died. One of the few silver linings was that the earthquake occurred on a Saturday, so there were no children in the large school building in Ghyalchok when it collapsed into rubble in a matter of seconds. Other buildings were so severely damaged that, for safety reasons, they have not been able to be used since.
Following the 2015 earthquake, the Tara Namaste Foundation launched a second main project in Ghyalchok: ongoing support of the Shree Patal Devi school – so that children from extremely poor families can attend school – as well as other forms of direct aid for various families from the region.
