Who we are
EPHC, (Education, Protection and Help for Children), runs a kindergarten in Kathmandu for the children of workers who cannot afford childcare. Jamarko was involved in providing land and a school building.
EPHC also runs a sponsorship scheme that supports children whose parents cannot afford to send them to school. The children are sponsored from age 7 to age 19, when they leave school. The scheme has been running successfully for over 20 years. Before the pandemic, sponsors were recruited from tourists through a Nepalese trekking company linked with Jamarko and EPHC. Post pandemic recruitment of new sponsors has been more difficult. EPHC are actively looking for partner organisations to help with this.
Both Jamarko and EPHC also set up other projects, such as an Emergency Medical Fund, Adult Literacy classes and a Women’s project to provide work and training for unsupported mothers. The Women's Project is now self-supporting.
The Emergency Medical Fund provides small grants to cover urgent medical costs, like antibiotics and hospital visits, that the EPHC students and their families cannot afford themselves. The Adult Literacy Programme offers parents who have missed out on school, a life changing opportunity to learn to read, write and do simple arithmetic.
Currently the main focus of The Friends of Jamarko and EPHC is to help support the sponsorship scheme. The sudden death of a key international contact, followed soon after by the pandemic and the
loss of tourism, resulted in the loss of
the source of new sponsors and a temporary breakdown in communication. Fearing that this would mean the loss of the sponsorship
scheme, and consequently the education of the Nepalese children, a small group
of existing sponsors started to rebuild through the set up of the Friends of
Jamarko and EPHC. Currently there are over 100 children on the scheme who are supported by a small group of sponsors plus
donations. With our help, EPHC are also trying to rebuild their
Emergency Medical Fund and, with the help of one UK donor, have restarted
the Adult Literacy Classes.
The day-to-day administration of the sponsorship and Adult Literacy programmes and the Emergency Medical Fund is the responsibility of staff at EPHC. They also mentor the young people on the sponsorship scheme and provide a friendly space for an informal homework club. Although the EPHC kindergarten is currently sponsored by another Nepalese charitable organisation funding for the sponsorship and Literacy programmes and the Medical fund still comes largely from individual sponsors and donations from outside Nepal. Currently we only have sponsors for half the children, therefore more sponsors and/or donations are urgently needed to keep all the children in school and to keep the Emergency Medical Fund going. This is where we - and you - come in.
The UK charity Friends of Jamarko and EPHC acts as the link
between supporters in the UK and Europe, and EPHC, collecting funds for the sponsorship
scheme, the Emergency Medical Fund and the Adult Literacy Programme.
Our longer-term aim is to find new and more sustainable ways to support the education of children in Nepal, but we also need to attract more supporters so that the children already on the sponsorship scheme can continue and so that younger children can have the chance to join it.
Can you help us to help them?
The sponsorship programme currently costs £120 a year for
the first 10 years, age 7 to 17, to School Level Certificate (GCSE level) and £150 to £350 a year
for the additional 2 years needed to complete Higher Secondary Level (‘A’ level
equivalent). The amount depends on the subject chosen as science and computer subjects are more expensive to study. During these final two
years, EPHC children are encouraged to find a part time job to save for
university level study. Our supporters have the option to commit to sponsor an individual named child throughout their education or to donate a regular or one-off amount towards the sponsorship scheme. Once a year those who support a named child receive a letter from and photograph of their sponsored child. All our supporters receive newsletters at least once a year.
Some of the first alumni of the sponsorship scheme are now supporting themselves at University and College and some are working. A small number have scholarships to study abroad, one is now teaching at EPHC and a few are now contributing towards EPHC themselves. We are very proud of their achievements. None of this would have happened without the education they received through the sponsorship programme.
To donate please see our 'How you can help' page.
To fund out more please email jamarkouk@gmail.com
The Friends of Jamarko and EPHC Newsletters provide a further source of information.
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