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| Sri Aurobindo Ashram/Orphanage Crisis Needs More Support From YouCrafts Hand Made at the Ashram Will be Sent to Donors on Request We appreciate the donations that have come through helping to support the orphanage in Nepal through their crisis. AERO sent them $2000. I donated $1000 of my own savings, and our readers have sent $933! If we can get the orphanage through the next few months they might see a return of tourism in Nepal and they may develop other sources f support. We have more than $6150 to go. I have just found a big bag of hand made pashmina, dresses, shoes, hand bags, wallets, necklaces, small blankets, and hand made incense from flowers (see above). It was left here to sell from an earlier visit from the Ashram. They were all hand made at the Ashram/orphanage. For any $100 donation we will send a small item of their choice to the donor. For donations of $250 or more, the donor may choose any item. |
 Ramchandra said he is already spending the funds we sent. I have a better picture of their financial situation now. He said they have about $10,000 a month income from milk and organic food sales locally, but sometimes the local markets are closed because of COVID. Also prices for things that are needed such as cooking oil have doubled in the last year.Here is a list from Ramchandra of the Ashram’s yearly expenses, but they can only cover half of it now: “We need to buy rice worth for the whole year for 300 people for USD 9000. 30 tonnesWheat USD 8000. 25 tonnesLentils USD. 6500. 6 tonnesSugar USD 4000. 5 tonnesOil USD 8200 3.6 tonnesSalt USD 500. 1.8 TonnesVegetables for whole year USD 15000.Fruits for whole year USD 15000.Electricity for whole year USD 14000.Medications for 300 people USD 22000.Books and note-books, pencils etc. USD 11400.Clothings, summer and winter USD 12000.And other miscellaneous items USD 15000.” (From Wednesday’s special)Some of you know that AERO has long supported the Sri Aurobindo Ashram/orphanage in Nepal. Sri Aurobindo was the “Dewey” of India. It is so named because the founder, Ramchandra, ran away from Nepal at 12, got himself educated in India, ending up at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, India. He returned 20 years later and saw all the poverty and children on the street in Nepal. He then started the orphanage. I first met him when he was doing fundraising in New York more than 20 years ago. He subsequently came to the IDEC organized in 2003 by AERO, bringing one of the children and one staff member. The child was Vedananda, who eventually got a Masters Degree in Math and Physics in Germany and is now principal of the orphanage school. Some will remember him for hosting the 2020 IDEC. So the Ashram is absolutely amazing with what it accomplishes for its children. It also raises some of its own food and even has a small dairy on the 2 ½ acres on the outskirts of Kathmandu. They sell excess milk in Kathmandu every day. There they raise 200 children with almost 100 other children on the farm in Terai in the south of Nepal and in the mountains in Gulmi. Ordinarily the Ashram is nearly self-supporting as it hosts tourists on their campus and at another site they built in the mountains. But that ended two years ago with the pandemic. They have spent all of their savings and even had to sell some of the land behind the school to keep going. AERO once raised funds to buy them a small piece of land to add to their 2 1/2 acres. Selling land is unthinkable and tells you how desperate the situation is! I just found out about the crisis this week. On Monday AERO wired $2000 in emergency funds to them. Also many of the children there are now getting COVID, including Ramchandra, even though he was able to get them one shot of Johnson and Johnson. When the earthquake hit Nepal and destroyed some of their buildings, AERO’s members raised over $10,000 for them so they could survive this. This week we hope to raise a similar about or more so they can survive this new crisis for the next three months. Make a generous donation to the Ashram/orphanage fund HERE All donations are tax-deductible and will go directly to the orphanage. Note: they will go to AERO’s donation page but all will go to the Ashram). |
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