We’ve been very busy here at the KRMEF in the past few months with many exciting projects coming to life and even more being put on the drawing boards! Krishna has returned from his trip around the world where he met new friends and connected with many familiar faces. We’re very excited to see the development in the foundation thanks to all these wonderful people that have put their heart out for Nepal.

Our most exciting news is that the Ankuran project is rapidly coming to life! Thanks to a wave of volunteers in the past two months, the kindergarten has been plastered and painted, the process of gathering the children is well underway, and furnishings/toys are coming in one by one!

As for the orphanage, a team of volunteers from Sweden’s Youth Initiative Program (YIP) worked to demo the existing building and clear the site of all the rubble to prepare for work to begin on the foundations. Bill Hutchins and the team have prepared a set of plans for the building and two american architect volunteers will continue to work in Nepal, as Bill has returned home to the states. As the concrete workers continue to dig holes and pour foundations, volunteers are brainstorming new techniques for eco bottle building and finalizing some of the design work. We hope to have the building completed by the end of June!!

Another exciting project that is nearing completion is a bus shelter out of bamboo down in the village which will later be covered with a roof made from recycled plastic water bottles. The roof will use approximately 2400 plastic bottles and is stitched together using the labels, caps and bottoms which we cut off in order to get a standard tile from the middle of the water bottle. We hope that this technique can be brought to many more villages – cleaning our streets and rivers from plastic one bottle at a time!

We’ve also recently been host to a group of 19 students and 5 professors from Writhlington School in the UK. The students were very busy for the five days that they stayed here, working to revitalize a local community school. A Bamboo shelter was built to provide a covered outdoor space for the children, bamboo fences were constructed around freshly turned and planted gardens. The classrooms were swept out, cleaned and re-painted with color added to the walls. Many thanks to the volunteers who helped to improve the community school and their generous donations to furnish the school and provide play-ground equipment!!

We continue our work on the bio-dynamic farming as Sir Hans Moulder has returned to Nepal for his 9th time! There have been many seminars held in the past two weeks, including one at our recently completed bottle buildings at the farming school in Pharping! Work is also continuing on the jewelry making with two jewelry design volunteers leading the way. Please check our facebook page for photos of merchandise! Our bio-briquette operation is rapidly growing and we are beginning to test bio-logs for use in larger scale cooking and mechanical processes. We hope to begin distribution to local mustard oil factories to halt their burning of locally forested trees.

As you can see, we’re very busy here at the foundation and also extremely excited to see so many new projects developing thanks to all the wonderful volunteers! Every day there is a new idea and a new volunteer eager to help. We’re looking forward to the upcoming months filled with many new and returning volunteers!

Much love from all of us at the KRMEF!

Stay in touch!

greenPILLAR is taking a volunteer team of 10 experts in various disciplines to KRMEF
in March, and again October, 2011. greenPILLAR’s mission is to assist in the process of empowering local efforts, to create new projects and support in the sustainability of this community.

KRMEF was formed by a native Nepalese couple, Krishna and Leela Gurung, in honor of their late son, Kevin Rohan. This remarkable venture began officially in 2009, and is one of the most inspiring regenerative community projects we have the honor to be in collaboration with. From Krisha and Leela’s passion and vision, the community has been inspired to create and sustain:

-a biodynamic organic garden
-a small clinic in a renovated club house
-a recycling operation where residents gather waste paper in Katmandu,
pulping it into a mixture with sawdust and fashioning it to briquettes that are then sold for heating
-systems set up to develop increased capacity for community honey making
-increased access to solar cookers
-bio-fuel production
-jewelry crafted from local plants
-extremely low-cost green housing in Katmandu and its environs by building homes comprised
of recycled bottles and paper, through natural building methods.

greenPILLAR has been offered to support KRMEF projects and through this
collaboration can nourish:

~Sustainable Building:
The opportunity stands to build an extenuation to the existing community center, under the direction of Washington D.C. based architect Bill Hutchins. Bill’s work with Krisha and Leela first began in the creation of a chappro (a simple home) out of Nepal’s proliferate trash. Nepal’s trash is a continuous problem due to the failure of trash pick up, and recycling. Multitudes of plastic packaging from junk food is constantly pumped from the West to Nepal, making trash collection difficult to solve. Trash prior to Western influence was biodegrable banana leaves. The plastic and trash will serve as the foundation for the extension of the community center, giving space for ideas to come true, as well as teach individuals new skills for survival and empowerment in their community.

The community has and will work together through the collection of hundreds of bottles, sand, clay and paper. Bottles set on their sides limit the need for earthen plaster; as such bottles are strong to hold the structure with little else. The plaster, clay and sand were aided through a mixture of chopped up straw and shredded trashed paper. This adds tensile strength and with the sand acts as filler. greenPILLAR stands to aide Bill and local skilled craftsman to help maintain and supporting these necessary earthen building methods. This occasion may go beyond the extension of KREMF’s community center and may expand in an opportunity to build an orphanage just northeast of Kathmandu.

~Agriculture:
greenPILLAR will explore a dialogue with existing local farmers as to how we may assist their efforts to expand production, and /or create access to different growing methods, and/or products, seed banking, and assist in creating greater access to locally grown native and nutritious foods. Through their partnership with Floracopiea, greenPILLAR hopes to explore the potential for local production of raw organic essential oils and/or incense for local; home, hospital, school, and clinic use, and for regional trade and/or export to generate further local income. greenPILLAR will also create collaborations as needed with their team of experts and vast extended networks in attaining and appointing new sustainable technologies for food production such as easily constructed greenhouses and water purification as requested.

~Breathing/Meditation/Yoga:
greenPILLAR will be offering an on-site daily practice of breathing and meditation/yoga and stetting exercises in the eco-village in Kahare, as well as in a local leprosarium. This will be the first attempt approach in recognizing and supporting the mind and body through holistic sustainability. greenPILLAR holds the intention to expand on this opportunity and offer it to families and children in the community center.

Leprosy is a disease of the nervous system, for which there are and have been effective treatment. Many victims of leprosy are not contagious, but because of the stigma of thousands of years of miss understanding of how the disease is contracted and spread, many remain unable to work or have a normal life. Studies have indicated that leprosy is caused by prolonged exposure to poverty in general, and areas in which basic sanitation, healthy food, and clean air and water are in short supplies.

Breathing and meditation can offer victims of leprosy time and space to regenerate their health, and offer support and awareness to stop their own negative internalization of their disease. This has the potential to create positive internal knowledge, strengthen communication and aide in the development of increased self-esteem and self worth. We hope that this will play a small role in contributing to the ability of those suffering with leprosy to develop feelings and actions of empowerment that will support their communities with their talents and skills.

greenPILLAR believes that all benefit comes in connection of the breath, and will offer guided breathing and meditation to enhance the communication and clarity of groups, meetings and activities. This practice with create a deeper state of awareness and concentration, as well as open communication and effective listening and goal oriented actions.

~Collaborative Leadership Facilitation:
greenPILLAR will bring their experience and knowledge of ‘The Art of Hosting’ with specialized trainings. The Art of Hosting is a tool that greenPILLAR will offer to compliment and strengthen local community communication systems, and communication between greenPILLAR and the community. This practice is meant to build discussion and teams around creating and finishing projects in the village. The Art of Hosting numbs traditional methods of planning that establish quantified set outcomes, which often restrain creative solutions. The Art of Hosting is a tool that enhances listening and assimilating new creative ideas into working, tangible solutions.

The Art of Hosting’s intentions are:

*developing the ability to listen deeply to diverse viewpoints
*create maximum participation for everyone
* nurture collective wisdom to understand conflict of ideas as a pathway to creative cooperation.
*principles of self organization, participation, ownership and non-linear solutions are the keys of both individual and collective discoveries.

~Economic Development:
Underlying greenPILLARs assistance to KREMF is the recognition and honoring of women in the community as wisdom keepers of ancestral skills in many areas that establish significant contributions to the community. Women’s empowerment will be nourished through training programs in areas of individual and community health, artisan crafts, agriculture, cooking, childcare, and will serve as the basis for collaboration with KREMF’s sustainable economic development.

Artisanal Crafts

Travel Well Gift Bags:
greenPILLAR will purchase a variety of commissioned items from the village in Kahare, to create gift 50-100 gift bags for presentation to greenPILLARs funders and partners. These bags can also be created for purchase on greenPILLARs website on an ongoing basis and possible retail outlets.

This Travel Well bag locally grown and crafted items from Kahare we will seek to include are:

-a travel pillow
-a bamboo spoon/fork/knife
-biodegradable Soap Nutshells
-a Buddhist Mala made from local Soap Nuts

In working with local people in Kahare to produce these and other items for the initial commissioning of these gift bags, greenPILLAR is excited to create and support networking and/or creating capacity for existing and new small sustainable businesses in Kahare. We look forward to creating new opportunity for these products to be appreciated and marketed regionally and abroad to generate various streams of income for the community.

Other possibilities:
-Tradtional Nepalese Cooking Classes and Re-Cycled glass Handicrafts, along with the support of women’s empowerment programming.

~Media Projects:
greenPILLAR will be documenting daily activities and offering daily Live video casts for the website.

greenPILLAR also hopes to create an in-depth documentary which will explore how the collaboration works within all the various categories greenPILLAR engages, as a tool for future efforts and projects.

Over the summer, Krishna traveled to mid and Western Nepal and found immense possibilities for fruit trees, vegetables and other crops. Krishna is now looking to convince the people that possibilities and potential exist. Here are pictures from the summer work being done in the village.

A nurse making an emergency dressing

Bottles & Bottles walls

Cleaning Liquor Bottles

Dr. Singh examining the patients

Dr. Singh examining the patients 2

Ecological Architecture

Explaining to the local patients about the clinic

Explaining about water testing

Fruit tree plantation beside the clinic

Fruit tree plantation in front of the clinic

Garden in March with volunteers

Group Picture With Nursing College

In May

In June

Inside the clinic painting being done

Lecture about water testing in Nursing College

Literacy class being taken in the clinic house during evening

Local Regular Clinic Opening

Organic Raw Honey Harvest

Patients waiting outside the New Clinic

Picking the plum

Summer Bio Dynamic Garden

Tailoring Training being done in the clinic during off time

Waste liquor bottles being utilized after collection for construction

Waste liquor bottles being utilized after collection

Waste Liquor Bottles being utilized into walls

Zukini

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