New School in Nepal

Three RPCV groups unite to create a school for indigenous students

A village in Nepal has a beautiful new school, thanks in part to members of several RPCV groups: Friends of Nepal, Friends of Moldova and the North Carolina Peace Corps Association.

They were among the donors for the new home of the Vidhya Mandir Boarding School in the eastern Nepalese village of Samalbung. The school has 126 students, many from indigenous and marginalized groups. School fees are low and some students receive full or partial scholarships.

My wife, Champa, and I led the fundraising effort and donated most of the budget for the new school, which was dedicated on April 30. We attended the colorful ceremony, which was filled with dances, songs, speeches and food.

The school is more beautiful than we’d dared to dream and the community couldn’t be happier.

Champa and I met in 1977 when I was an English education Peace Corps Volunteer posted to Ilam, Nepal’s tea-growing center. Champa was a fellow teacher at the school. We fell in love, got married (46 years and counting) and raised a family in America. After our two sons became adults, we served together as PCVs in Moldova, shortly before the pandemic and the outbreak of war in neighboring Ukraine.

After completing our service in Moldova, we visited Samalbung during one of our regular trips to Nepal and saw that its school was in miserable condition. In the year that followed, we worked closely with school leaders to design, fund and construct the new building, with extensive local support. Community members prepared the site, donated money, contributed labor and supported the school in other ways, from providing wood from their own trees to feeding the workers.

The attractive two-story structure, with a lovely view of the Himalayas, is a huge improvement over the previous school and is already being used for community meetings, sports events and other purposes as well.

We are grateful to the RPCV community and everyone else who opened their hearts (and wallets) to assist these young people. I encourage you to watch the video we produced to see for yourself the impact you had.

David Jarmul (Nepal in 1977-79) lives in Durham, N.C. His blog, “Not Exactly Retired,” has readers worldwide.