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A Rotary Aided Project by Bournemouth Eastcliff Rotary inspired by Rotarian Chris Potter 

Shree Narayan Devi Higher Secondary School at Barrafedi, NUWAKOT, Nepal.

Bournemouth Eastcliff Rotary Club was already supporting the Bo Hospital for Children Project when Chris Potter became a member of the Club.  He expressed considerable interest in the project and gave a lot of support to Peter Jones, travelling to Sierra Leone at his own expense on two occasions to report back on progress and ensure that funds were being used as intended.

Later he went on a private trekking holiday to Nepal and in the course of his trip he encountered a small community with a school which was in a very poor state of repair and he met with members of the local Rotary Club, Hira Dhamala of the Rotary Club of Kantipur became his contact.

On return to Bournemouth he showed his own club some photographs and a dialogue started between the two clubs via Chris with a view of helping in some ways to help to improve the building.

In the meantime there was a devastating earthquake in this very region which totally destroyed the school and instead of repairing it was a case of building from scratch.  It was agreed that the local community would provide the labour and skills necessary to build the structure and foundation, we would fund the local purchase of the raw materials needed for the project.

The school is the Shree Narayan Devi Higher Secondary School at Barrafedi, NUWAKOT, Nepal.

The work commenced in 2015 and we started by sending an initial £1100 in June, followed by £5K in January 2016.   In 2017 Chris travelled to check out the works and see exactly what was needed. This travel was funded by a District Grant of £260 and in the course of time Chris made personal donations to the club attracting Gift Aid as well as leading the fund raising through his own efforts at organising Road Races.  We sent £3.5K in January 2017, £2k in March 2017 and finally £4K.

In April we received the good news that the school building was completed and a set of photographs.  Chris has been invited back to see the finished building and is planning to travel in October this year.  We still have some funds which may be needed to help with books and teaching aids but we await a report back from Chris after his visit.   This is a very fine example of Rotary stepping forward to help improve the lives in a community desperate for assistance and helping to change lives for the better.