15 Years in 15 Days: Day 4

Day 4: 2015. After OWC helped fund the first round of construction on the Tri Ka school with Belgian organizations Nanri and Edukado, we hit an unexpected hurdle. The new school buildings could serve 75 students, but only 24 were attending the school. OWC had raised $16,000 to fund the construction of additional classrooms, but were stuck, as we weren’t sure if more students would attend Tri Ka. We decided travel to Nepal with four primary goals: 1. To see if there was community interest in expanding the school 2. To distribute water filters to the community 3. To have our 2 OWC volunteers in KU’s architecture program measure where the school expansion would be, and 4. See the impact Govinda and Sudha’s schools had on their past students.

This 26 day trip was one of the greatest experiences of our lives. We were welcomed by this incredible community in Narayanpur, Nepal. Through our conversations, OWC Executive Director Shelby Todd realized that if OWC funded a school lunch program for Tri Ka, their student body would grow overnight.

It was from Shelby’s surveying and calculations that OWC made the decision to fund the additional classroom construction and a new school lunch program. Two years after our trip, 77 students attended the Tri Ka school.