In October we are once again running another “Build and Trek” event that will help to build a Vocational School in Nepal.

Nepal’s high unemployment and lack of skilled human resource are amongst the country’s biggest challenges. Youth unemployment is 35.8% of the total workforce. The majority of children leave school, (which is not compulsory in Nepal) with little prospect of a job or further education. The percentage of skilled labour is very low, the gap between demand and supply in the market is huge.

Over 750,000 young people leave Nepal each year seeking employment in low paid jobs in the Middle East and other countries where labour is cheap and conditions intolerable. They can be away for months at a time, trying to earn enough to support a family back home. The alternative is to scratch a living in Nepal with very poor income prospects.

Supporting Nepal’s Children plans to build Vocational Schools across Nepal that can meet the standards and needs of the modern industrial market and retain that labour in Nepal, giving these young people skills and qualifications in different engineering trades – carpentry, electrical, plumbing, aluminium fabrication, welding and tailoring. They can then return to their villages and start a business. This school will be a new venture for our partner NGO in Nepal, the Nepal Youth Foundation (NYF). 

Our team will arrive in Kathmandu (1400m), and early the next day, they will fly to Pokhara (822m), a beautiful city set on the side of Lake Phewa where they will get an afternoon to relax and enjoy the peaceful surroundings of this city before starting the trek the next day. The trek to Poon Hill lasts about 4-5 days, where they will enjoy magnificent views of the incredible Annapurna range at dawn, trekking up to a maximum height of 3,210m.  Each trekking day will be about 6-8 hours passing through the beautiful villages and staying in local tea-lodges.

During this time they will experience the more mountainous and remote Nepal for which the Himalayas is famous.

Having briefly returned to Kathmandu, they will then take an internal flight to the site at Dhangadhi in the far west of Nepal, close to the border of India, where the Vocational School they have helped to fund will be located.

Over the next 4-5 days, the team will work on the building site at whatever stage of development it has reached, from “foundations to finishing touches”. 

Throughout this time, they will be accommodated close-by in a modest but very comfortable Base Camp consisting of individual tents, a mess tent for eating and socialising, a cook tent, toilet tents and shower tent.

By day, the team will work, supervised by local builders in a safe environment, then once the day is over, they will enjoy campfires, cold showers and good food! 

They will be working extremely hard on the building site in the heat and humidity of Dhangadhi (which can reach 42 degrees) which is one of the lowest points above sea level in Nepal. This is no walk in the park, there will be hard graft involved and no doubt a few blisters!

Once the 5 days is over, it will be another flight back into Kathmandu where warm showers and comfy beds await!

All in all, the team will be in Nepal for just over 2 weeks but will experience many highs (and hopefully not too many lows) and give something back to this incredible country.

Our trekkers all pay their own way, and all donations matched by the St. James’s Place Charitable Foundation (SJPF), so all money raised by the Supporting Nepal’s Children expedition will be doubled for other worthy causes in the UK.