SAI Home (from May 2007)

SAI Home was just five minutes walk from where the Dharmik Australia founders lived for four months in 2007. From a distance it was curious that such a small 6x6 metre concrete building could be home to so many children, adults and chickens as well as a couple of dogs. latest>>

When we visited there we were appalled at the living conditions. Leaky roof, smelly toilet, cramped, not enough food, poor clothing and children forced to stay home due to inability to pay school fees. As fate would have it, we met Mr. Narayan Shrestha there who was to become our first in-country partner and who helps us in many ways through his non profit organisation Dharmik Nepal. This web page tells the historical story of how Naryan and Mark (Dharmik co-founder) set out to improve the initial conditions in this home. Please see this project page which tells the current story.

We met the Founder of the home who was a man of high integrity who had many excellent ideas and simply needed help with funding. His days were spent going door to door in the district asking for rice and lentils for the next month’s food. He had perhaps twenty regular donors, but was only just managing to feed and house the 15 children, with his collecting and also his wife working full time as a maid for $50 per month. We began slowly, and the decisions were made cooperatively.

The inside toilet with 23 people using it made the entire house smell very bad to the extent of a health hazard. Niras (home founder) knew exactly what to do he just had no funding. He did all the work himself and constructed an outdoor toilet for day time use with brick walls and a door, cleverly using the external staircase as part of the structure.

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We've heard of rising damp but what about falling damp? The roof needed patching up to stop the water leaking in and creating damp all through the house. This is a big danger for respiratory diseases. We fixed most of the problem with a 30 mm layer of cement on the roof. This is still an issue to be fully addressed.

No money to buy gas for cooking means using an outdoor fire and scrounging for wood. This is difficult at any time but especially the wet season. They need about 13 x 20kg bottles of gas a year which we are funding. This is an annual expense.

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Right at the front door is a big hole (30 tonnes of dirt to fill it in) which is not good for mosquitoes and is a drowning hazard. Some of the kids are under 6. We will finish filling this in once the truck can get in there. Trucks are all loaded and unloaded by hand.