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Renewed Hope in Earthquake Devastated Dolakha
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The village of Damarang, a community in the Suspa area of Dolakha district, has a history of strong commitment to education and prior to the devastating earthquake of April 2015, had recently finished updating its school building of Shree Sundarawati Aadharbhoot Bidhyalaya. These were destroyed along with thousands of residences. As a result the community was left with no adequate building to house even a basic school program.
The community contacted the NLF through Dr Sara Shneiderman, an associate professor at the University of British Columbia’s Department of Anthropology and School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, who has a long time connection with the community. The NLF was able to coordinate fund raising including contributions from the Nepal Cultural Society of British Columbia, the Nepalese Society of Texas, and Roorkee Indian Institute of Technology Alumni Association of which NLF president, Naresh Koirala, is a member.
The NLF has a strong commitment to supporting a strict adherence to internationally accepted seismic building standards in Nepal. NLF member Dr Bishnu Pandey an internationally recognized expert on seismically sound building technology at the British Columbia Institute of Technology and Mr Dev Maharjan of ESS, a national engineering company, provided input to ensure that the resulting structure was built to national and international standards and which now can be used as a model for other communities.
The construction was jointly managed by the NLF and Fashelung Samajik Sewa a local organisation that supports the local Thangmi community.
