Altevette Project (UK Registered Charity No. 1177053) funds the development and support of a school project for disadvantaged girls in the high altitude and remote region of Upper Mustang in Nepal near the border with Tibet.
Girls in this area are vulnerable to extreme poverty and exploitation and have little opportunity for education due to the lack of schools at high altitude in such remote and harsh regions.
The educational system of Upper Mustang has as its foundation the Buddhist doctrine and, with rare exceptions, there are no other schools outside of the monasteries and religious communities. Our students receive a full government secular school curriculum, 3 languages, Tibetan, Nepali and English as well as Buddhist ritual activities and Buddhist instruments such as gongs, cymbals, trumpet etc. are also learned.
The school opened in 2012, with 15 girls and 4 teachers and we've grown at an almost unbelievable rate to where we are today - around over 50 students aged 5 to 18 in school, 9 teachers and 2 support staff, all of whom are fully resident and live full time at the school.
Our teachers must be at least bilingual, and some speak 3 languages Tibetan, Nepali and English. All our teachers live-in at the school 6 months of the year in Upper Mustang and 6 months in Pokhara in the foothills of the Himalayas and apart from their teaching schedules take welfare responsibilities for our girls too and take a duty roster to be on call at nights and holidays.
Raising the money to build the school was a challenge but having done so, now we are committed to support the ongoing running costs of the school, which receives no government funding. Of course, this includes the cost of teacher’s salaries. Our qualified teachers are salaried and receive a fair wage, which has resulted in the school being recognised for its high level of academic achievement even having only been running for 6 years to date. The school receives no government grants and relies solely on fundraising.
Please help us if you can to raise the shortfall we have in our budget this year. £1500 will support the salary of a full time, resident teacher for a year and we need to raise at least another £5000 this year to have enough funds to support all our teachers through 2020. Any surplus raised above this will be used to help fund our teacher training programme next year.
We don't take any expenses from donated monies and apart from bank charges, which we can't avoid, we're 100% efficient in sending all donated money to the school. Please help us if you can. All donations, of any size will be gratefully received.
Please check our website for more details about our school and students
https://altevetteproject.org/
and follow us on Facebook at
https://www.facebook.com/altevetteschool
