The first week of February saw an important landmark as the roof for the ground floor went on the school. And Lesley, whilst on holiday in Northern India, met up with 'Apple' who is a teacher in Kathmandu and our link with the Hangdwei village community school management team; Apple travelled 52 hours on two buses to meet Lesley first in Jaipur and then 6 more hours on two more buses, as she moved on, to the holy city of Pushkar (before a 58 hour return journey!) This enabled them to have a shared up-to-date view of progress on the school and to plan the operational detail of opening in April with the first 150 children aged 5 to 11. (Over the next year, the school will be completed with 5 more class-rooms added above the ground floor for a further 100 older children).

Apple is very pleased both with progress and the financial management of the project which looks like coming in on-budget and on-time; which has meant that every Nepalese rupee (about a penny) has been accounted for with every labourer etc signing for every hour's work! For those of you who know the Indian sub-continent, I think we have to admire the village for its commitment to getting their school 'the Western way'. Apple himself has not received any payment for his liaison/programme management work. We could not have done this project without him.

Apple is now on his way (another 48 hours on 2 buses) to Hangdwei to supervise the recruitment of a Head Teacher and other teachers, to organise the making of school uniforms and to work out what needs doing for stationery and books. He hopes there will also have been progress made on extending the power supply (the hydro-electric scheme at the village has only been supplying 40 40 watt light bulbs for 3 hours every evening). Cooking also needs to be sorted; as the little children will walk to school for up to 2 hours (each way) up and down steep hills, Q. Learning will provide them with rice and lentils for lunch each day. We are hoping to also provide milk first thing - if anyone would like to sponsor this, a few hundred pounds would make all the difference. To donate go to www.justgiving.com/qlearning. Sorting out boarding for 10 deserving case borders from beyond the village boundaries is also on the list.

Congratulations to Edward Gosling and Harry Ballinger for passing their CELTA courses (Edward passed above standard) which qualify them to teach English as a foreign language. They will be going out to Nepal in the first week of April for about 6 months to help start the school. English is the lynch-pin for learning in Nepal and their work will give the children the best possible chance of thriving as new learners. They will be living with a family and are currently preparing for a very isolated 6 months with many injections and survival gear.

Meanwhile, Lesley has been developing contacts in India and is hopeful of finding ways to train up women in the village to earn money, and for the goods to be sold. Q. Learning will be investing in a simple building for the women. The ultimate aim is to enable the community to fund the school themselves and to provide work opportunities for the chilren as they graduate from the school. Again, any help or suggestions would be welcome!