KATHMANDU: A GROUP of Girl Guides will be spending their holidays helping decorate schools in Nepal.
Third Slough Guides have spent the last 12 years raising cash to send to Nepal to give girls an education, who wouldn’t have been able to afford one otherwise.
The group have been to Kathmandu twice to visit – once in 2010 and again in 2015.
Now years later, the girl guides – who meet every Friday – are gearing up for their third trip during the Easter Holidays.
While they are there, they will paint school classrooms with colorful murals, catch up with the girls who they have helped give education to and visit an HIV/Aids center to learn about what happens when a child is born with the virus.
The team will be made up of 22 – 13 girls aged between 12 and 17 and nine leaders. Dr. Lesley Ashton, who is in charge of the guide group who meet at Slough Baptist Church, said: “We are going to Nepal because the church we met at has a long association with Nepal.
“We are also going because I think it is important that the girls should not only go on trips that are really fun for them but trips that are giving up their time to help others.
“We started sponsoring three girls through their education in 2007. “We first went out in 2010 and then again in 2015. Now we are going over the Easter holidays in early April.
“We don’t get told what we’re going to be doing until closer to the time, but it will be along the lines of cleaning up and decorating the village school.
“We draw murals on the walls depending on how old the children are that use the room so we might do the alphabet with apples or some lovely pictures or inspirational quotes.
“We’re just brightening the school rooms.”
She explained that the group will also be exploring, adding: “We will be going to the children’s homes, basically giving them our time.
“We usually visit the HIV/Aids center to find out about how the children are born with it.
“And we get involved in a malnutrition center. The children are eating in Nepal, but they go with a carer to find out about what’s best to eat.”
The trip is organized with the Nepal Youth Foundation but all of the costs are paid for through fundraising at local events.
This year the group has raised money through a ‘swimathon’ challenge, a big breakfast, tombola’s at fetes like the Canal Festival, bag packing at supermarkets and a quiz night.
Dr. Ashton added: “It is very exciting to be going back to see the children five years on.”
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