Originally everything was planned differently, but people are used to changes in schedule in Nepal.

This also happened to the five members of a tour group from Baar-Ebenhausen, among them the married couple Anton and Christa Spies. Their four-week tour was organised and coordinated by Edmund Graf, a policeman from Ingolstadt, who has travelled to different regions of Nepal several times and has experience rescuing people involved in climbing accidents. This time they planned to do a trekking tour in the west of Nepal to climb the Norbu Kang, a mountain more than six-thousand meters high.

They had 350 Euro in their travelling bags which they had raised with „One-World-Group Rohrbach“ during a fund-raiser in „Gabriel’s bookshop“ in Rohrbach. The money was meant for our Children’s Home to buy food.

Due to bad weather conditions the group returned to Kathmandu several days late, where Sunil Shresta received the money to pass on to our Shaligram Children’s Home. Thank you and Danjabaath.

The idea of selling calendars in order to raise money for charitable organisations is not at all ground-breaking. The NHB started doing this in 1997.

Considering today’s run of 10,000 printed calendars, the beginnings can be called modest. The NHB started with 50 DIY-calendars featured by self-taken photos. The celebrated mountaineers Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner and her husband Ralf Dujmovits as well as the extreme climber Hans Kammerlander opened again – as they have been doing for many years now - their photo archives for the present edition of “Himalaya 2015”. This is one fact that makes the calendar special.

The three benefactors also commit themselves to the sale of the calendar during their own shows or when talking to their business associates. They have been supporting our organisation in different ways for many years now. Only some weeks ago, Kaltenbrunner and Dujmovits were in Beilngries for a fund-raiser and promoted the calendar then.

On the one hand there are the breath-taking pictures, and on the other hand there is the printing, which is essential for turning them into a calendar. And this work has been done for more than 15 years now by Aumüller, a company in Regensburg and a generous supporter.

The calendar is 43.5 x 40.5 cm and consists of one cover, one sheet for each month and one for additional information. The pictures show fascinating impressions of the wonderful landscape, the culture and the people in the Himalaya region. The calendar which costs 17 Euro interests people from all over the world. Chile, Dubai, Australia, Vatican City, Georgia and Canada are countries on our distribution list.

It’s our aim to invest the proceeds of the sale in projects like schools, hospitals, children’s and elderly homes to support their running allow them to expand or start new projects. We have recently started building a school kitchen west of Kathmandu, in the district of Gorkha and renovating a hospital in the south of Nepal.

You can order a calendar here on this webpage “Oder a Calendar” using the order form.

Since 2009 NHB has been in contact with Deuter, a leading company in the field of all kinds of backpacks. The former president, Karl Rebele, initiated the bond, which Ralf Petschl and Manfred Lindner have continued. That’s how the project Santi Nikunja Lower Secundary School was generated, as the company supported it with 30,000€.

The new school complex, which was then the first primary school in Kathmandu, was inaugurated in the presence of the Nepali minister of education in 2013 by Manfred Lindner. For this event the company was also very generous in donating 300 school backpacks and pencil cases for all the pupils.

Nearly all members of NHB accepted the invitation by Angela Vögele, the person responsible for public and press relations of Deuter, and travelled to Gersthofen near Augsburg for a tour of the company premises. Angela Vögele gave an overview of the company’s history and the present production status of the successful business.

She promised to support NHB again financially by donating 2,500€, which will be used to extend the school building of Shanti Nikunja. Vögele intends to come to Nepal in spring 2016, when the new building will be inaugurated.

The diversified day ended with a city tour of Augsburg.

Schönaich, a town near Böblingen in Baden-Württemberg is not an unknown place for the members of NHB, financial support started there 17 years ago.

Then it was 15,000 D-mark, which the small team of “Ecumenical Circle for One World” collected in the context of “One World Day”, which is celebrated annually on the first Sunday of Advent. This was only possible because of the enormous financial commitment of the community members and the inventiveness of the members of the organisation. Originally, it is an unwritten law that they help every charitable organisation only once. This is the first time ever that someone has received financial support a second time. This can be seen as a special sign of trust and the long-term good contact.

The present “One World Day” with the topic “Inclusion” raises money for our “School for the Blind” in Chautara. The equipment for the school itself will be funded as well as for the affiliated residential accommodation for the 16 boys and girls.

On 16th Oct 2014 Michaela and Michael Rebele came to visit Schönaich to make a presentation about the various projects. Much has changed in the many years since Karl Rebele and Manfred Lindner gave a lecture on NHB in 1997. The audience of the evening event were amazed at the results and praised the work of the organisation.

Elke Kübler, the president of the ecumentical cirle thanked the referees for their presentation and expressed her good hopes for a successful event on 30th Nov 14. 

New school building in Nepal

75,000 Euro – this amazing amount stood in big figures on the cheque Matthias Wanner, marketing director in Germany of LOWA Sports Shoe Company, handed over to Ralf Petsch, president of NHB, during a fund-raiser of Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner and Ralf Dujmovits in Beilngries on 8th Oct 2014. This moment was one of the most remarkable of the nearly 140 events organised by NHB up to then. The reaction of the audience also showed their amazement.

How did it come to this extraordinarily generous donation and what is the huge amount meant for? In September 2013 during a visit in Nepal, members of NHB were asked for the funding of a new school building by some representatives of Sangachok, a small village in the district of Sindhupalchok. There was a school building which was in a very desperate condition. The peditioners were well-prepared and handed over a construction and financing plan, which lay at about 70,000 Euro. Ecological fundamental ideas were also part of this plan, like a big water and rain retention basin.

Ralf Dujmovits and Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner, who have been supporting NHB for many years, have intended to support another school project for some time. They used their good contact to Werner Riethmann, the managing director of LOWA Company. As the company celebrated their 90th anniversary last year, this seemed to be an adequate occasion to raise some donations.

After the old school in Sangachok had been torn down during the summer months, the construction of the new school building was started immediately. If everything goes according to the schedule, the weather is in our favour and the craftsmen are reliable workers, the two-story-building with twelve rooms will be finished by summer 2015.

In addition to the school building, furniture and teaching materials will also be bought from the sum of the cheque. One thing may not be forgotten – just like any other project of NHB 20% of the workload must be done by the members of the community themselves. That’s how we create a bound between the project and the beneficiaries.

The official inauguration will take place in autumn 2015. 200 boys and girls and their teachers will be looking forward to it as well as the benefactors and the members of NHB.

Sabina Parajuli is 24 years old. She grew up in Sangachok in the district of Sindupal, one of the villages in which the NHB built a school ten years ago. Since then, her father has been the headmaster there. Now his daughter is a proud assistant physician.

NHB is also partly responsible for Sabina’s success as they founded her studies. Sabina showed the necessary ambition and industriousness. Now she is an assistant to become a General Practitioner but she wants to go on studying to become a cardiologist.

This kind of support by NHB is something special as it is individual help and this gives their work a “face” in contrary to all the other projects like building several schools or the funding of vehicles or hospital equipment. These “faces” show the immediate humanitarian commitment of the NHB. Another example is Rajendera Giri, who all the project work in Nepal started with more than twenty years ago, or Sunil Shresta, who has been the major local coordinator since the early times, or Bimala Giri, an eleven-year-old blind girl, who is able to attend school, namely the” School for the Blind” in Chautara, thanks to NHB.

In 2008 Sabina’s father approached Manfred Lindner, founding member of NHB, with the plea of funding his daughter’s studies to become a practitioner. After NHB was responsive to this plea, the 18-year-old girl went to Kathmandu to start her studies there in the same year. In April 2014 Sabina managed to pass the important examination to become an assistant physician. However she hasn’t finished her studies yet, as she will need to assist at a hospital in Kathmandu for one year until April 2015. Only after that time, can she be called a real physician.

Sabina was also granted a scholarship by the Nepali government and that’s why she is bound to move to one of the many medically undersupplied regions of Nepal for another two years. Her training to a medical specialist in cardiology will take two more years after that. It’s still a long way to go for Sabina Parajuli. Her ambitions will carry her to her medical aims and NHB will keep supporting her further studies financially. Sabina spent her semester breaks in the last couple of years to help the people of her village – a noble way of paying back what she was given.

Sabina’s brother Nabin is a chip off the old block regarding ambition. The 24-year-old works in IT, which is also an upcoming industry in Nepal. For two years, he has been leading the “Nepalhilfe IT Innovation Center”, an institution run by NHB giving people from Kathmandu, Lubhu and Chautara who are interested in further education the chance to do so.

Has anything changed? This was one of the most important questions to be answered for the travelling group from Beilngries at their arrival at the Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu after more than 18 hours of travelling. After a warm welcome by our Nepali friends, the group made their way to the city centre. The earlier posed question could be answered during the short bus ride. No, nothing has changed: still chaotic traffic conditions, streets with holes and bumps, the typical smell, the same products for sale in the shop windows and the hotel with its unchanged old-fashioned bleak charm. Welcome back to Kathmandu!

The aim of the work trip was to divide the group in two teams in order to travel on the one hand to the east and on the other hand to the west and south. Already accomplished projects there needed to be supervised as well as ideas and chances of new projects for their possible realization had to be checked.

The whole report can be read in our Newsletter June 2014. We are sorry that there is only a German version of it available.

The six-year-old Narendra Chaudari has been living in our Shaligram children’s home, the core project of NHB, since 30th May 2014. Narendra’s home lies 450 km west of Kathmandu in Dang District.

Narendra is the youngest of three brothers. After his father had died of kidney disease his mother was trying to care for her sons on her own, which – however – failed due to financial problems. Thus the mother decided to give Narendra to Shaligram.

Meanwhile the new family member attends first grade of West Wing School. The extended family now consists of 23 boys and 17 girls.

Best wishes for you, Narendra!

The legendary Brocken, Wernigerode und die UNESCO-World Heritage Quedlinburg were the destination for the members of NHB from 16th to 18th May 2014.

Reason for this trip to Saxony-Anhalt was Kaltenbrunner’s lecture in the castle of Ballenstedt, a little town a few kilometres away from Quedlinburg. The very successful Austrian mountaineer and her husband Ralf Dumjovits have been supporters of NHB for many years. Travelling from Mönchengladbach to Dresden on their lecture tour, the adventurers made a short stop-over in Harz.

We used this invitation to an informal come-together not thinking about planning a project, organizing the next event or having an official meeting. Even two members of our partner organization from Lichtenegg in Lower Austria, Erwin and Erika Stix, made all the way 900 km north to be part of this weekend team-building event.

Albrecht Schmidt, the organizer of the lecuture in Ballenstedt castle, had arranged an interesting schedule - comprising both cultural and social aspects - for his visitors from Bavaria and Austria. Amongst others, part of this programme was a ride with the old steam engine up to the 1141 metre high summit of Brocken. The group withstood the typical Brocken weather which was just as expected, namely foggy, cold and very windy, and listened to an extremely competent guide. This tour will stay in mind for a long time.

Moreover, another item of the agenda was the visit of the historic Quedlinburg with its town hall in the centre of the middle-aged town and the reception by the mayor PH Eberhard Brecht. Even though, being against high-pressure deadlines, Gerlinde and her agent Kathrin Furthner managed to take part in this official welcome.

He was a team player in the twofold meaning of the word: Long before the foundation of NHB Kurt had been a team member in a volleyball club with many of the NHB-members.

Kurt Bobens deceased in Nuremberg on 23rd March 2014 after a long-lasting disease he had been fighting against confidently and energetically. What stays is the good memory of him. His absence will be more than present when the time of the calendar sale starts as he was the one travelling the country, and accompanying the lecture tour of Hans Kammerlander, Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner and Ralf Dujmovits in order to offer the calendar for sale.

He was always trying to invite celebrities in the realm of culture and mountaineering for fund-raisers to Beilngries. His favourite hobby, photography, was one of the major reasons for having a really presentable chronicle of our organization now. He was always a reliable partner in every single matter.

His entire commitment was aimed to a better future for the people in Nepal! Thousand thanks to you and Danjabaath.

The chairmen of DAV Sektion Haar, Wolfgang Hillner and Wolfgang Schulz, presented a cheque worth 700 € to Michael Rebele at the office of Alpenverein Regensburg on January, 2014.

This was due to the sale of our calendar “Himalaya 2014” at the lecture of Hans Kammerlander in Haar near Munich in November 2013. The organizers were obviously so enthusiastic about the activities of the of the relief organization in Beilngries that they reacted in such a generous way.

As the mountaineers from Haar are in close contact with those in Regensburg it seemed a good opportunity to present the cheque during a visit. We would like to thank DAV Sektion Haar for this donation and Hans Kammerlander for his support.