NEPAL: Students visit Rohingya refugees
Refugees also receive support from Nepal Don Bosco Society
NEPAL
(MissionNewswire) A group of 5th-grade students from Nepal Don Bosco School, located in Siddhipur, Nepal, visited the settlement for Rohingya refugees in the District of Lalitpur, a neighboring district of Kathmandu. Students were accompanied by their class teacher and the principal Father Binu Jacob.
The refugees were driven out of their homeland of Myanmar 12 years ago. The settlement has 88 Muslim families in temporary houses made out of bamboo and tin sheets. Since the stoppage of the monthly support from UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency, they are under great stress to look for shelter and work so that they are able to feed their families.
The young Don Bosco students observed the condition of the settlement, met people and listened to their stories of moving from place to place after taking refuge in Nepal. The main purpose of the visit was to distribute food packets and bundles of clothes for women, children, and men. The students had gathered these items during the Christmas season.
A Salesian missionary explained, “The Rohingya refugees have been helped by Nepal Don Bosco Society several times with food provisions, clothes, shelter materials and sanitation materials. About 35 children from this settlement are going to nearby schools even though at times they unable to pay the school fees. Several private institutions, nongovernmental agencies and Christian organization have rendered support to these children and their families.”
Salesian missionaries arrived in Nepal in the 1890s and started a secondary school in Siddhipur, a village in the Lalitpur district. Today there are 20 secondary schools and nine Salesian centers in the central-eastern and far western regions of the country. Salesians provide education and social development programs to aid poor youth and their families.
Nepal is among the least developed countries in the world, with about one-quarter of its population living below the poverty line. Salesian missionaries are still hard at work with long-term reconstruction efforts after a devastating 7.8 earthquake struck Nepal on April 25, 2015, with a second striking on May 12, 2015.
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Sources:
ANS Photo (usage permissions and guidelines must be requested from ANS)
Salesian Missions – Nepal
