Everest Base Camp trek & volunteering, Nepal

Planet

You’ll find us in an area called Lakeside, which is not too far from Pokhara - the second most visited city in Nepal. Here in Lakeside we try to minimise waste as much as possible. We do this by running community clubs where kids from the local communities join us for 1.5 hour classes to educate them on the importance of recycling and waste management. A nice example of one of these classes is the arts and crafts class we host. We’ll start the class by going out and collecting litter. Once a sufficient amount of litter has been collected, we’ll head back to the classroom and see what we can make with the litter collected. Any litter that doesn’t get used in the arts and crafts will then be recycled responsibly. We also don;t throw away any plastic bottles. Plastic bottles are cleaned thoroughly and given back to shops in the community that sell beverages - the local community encourages refilling water bottles instead of selling bottled water.

Not only are we big about minimising waste, we’re also very conscious of the environment and the carbon footprint we leave behind. In an attempt to reduce our carbon footprint, we have relocated all of our projects in such a way that they are now a lot closer together which leads to us walking to our projects instead of using vehicles as a means of transport. Another great fact about Nepal - there is a law within the public transport sector. Vehicles operating in the public transport industry aren’t allowed to be older than 20 years old. Older cars tend to give off more carbon dioxide and as a result are not allowed to be used as a form of public transport.

People

We have a number of great community based volunteer projects in Nepal 2 great examples are our Nepal Construction project and our Women’s Empowerment projects. On our construction project you may find yourself contributing to education in Nepal by building and renovating educational facilities in the communities of Pokhara. If there aren’t any renovations going on, you may also assist by building desks and other equipment that help with setting up an environment in which local communities can be educated. Our Women’s Empowerment projects work closely with Nepal’s anti human trafficking services where we work with people who have previously been involved in human trafficking and educate them about health & hygiene, provide sanitary and health services and teach them English which will help them find employment.

We also try to promote change as much as possible. Recycling or the use of litter bins has never been practised very well in Nepal. Once a week, as a group, we will go do a park clean where we collect litter and recycle it responsibly and once a month we’ll do this in a neighbouring village. We find that the more we do this, the more local community members take note and actually join us in picking up litter. It’s great to see the locals are willing to change their ways and are motivated to clean up their villages.