Varun and Rob visited Nepal in February and March 2016. Now, Rob is back with Dr Christie and her son at the project area of Katunge village to map and further contribute to the development.

Rob is also visiting many schools in Katunge area, some of which might be hours apart on foot, to map education after the disaster. 

​While they were in Kathmandu, they also met officers and representatives from key organizations working in Nepal such as Red cross. 

Christie, Rob, and Varun are currently working on a paper for the journal Himalayas about disaster governance. 

We had over 80 friends of Future Village joint our first ever "Nepal Future Village Project 100 Homes Post-Earthquake Rebuild Forum" in Singapore on 25 June, happy to seeing all familiar faces from around the world, million thanks for all the hard efforts from Nepal, Singapore and Hong Kong volunteer teams to make this happen!
Please continue to support us!

Online donation (in Singapore dollars):
https://give.asia/mo…/nepal_future_village_project_100_homes
Online donation (in US dollars):
https://www.generosity.com/…/chance-initiative-support-revi…

Time flies, today is the anniversary of the Nepal earthquake. Until now there are half a million homeless still living in shelters or temporary tents, we have to ask “Why there is so little progress in the post-disaster reconstruction work?” It is no doubt on the enormous scale and complexity of the rebuilding project, as well as the difficulty and hard work of fundraising for Nepal. We just have one ultimate goal with core value: to help Nepalese as many as we can to rebuild their hope and future with their families. They deserve a chance to get start their new life. 

It’s never easy to go from zero to hero. However, I am grateful that to have passionate and enthusiastic teammates around the world to contribute in every way and make the rebuild work possible. In memory of the first anniversary of today, we are blessed to officially launch our new website “ Chance Initiative”. It serves as an important aspect of our endeavours is to create, document or produce a visual and written record of the post-earthquake reality in one of the world's poorest region. We want to share the stories of grief and joy, struggle and perseverance, of progress toward a hopeful future.

We are very grateful to have two of my students Varun & Rob, who devoted so much of their time and effort in the past few weeks on this new website. As what we mentioned at “The Story of Chance”: “should we give up and leave the community we have grown so fond of to no one's mercy?......or should we continue on 11 years of footsteps that represent bravery and turn the Future Village project area into a new dream, a new beginning?” Hopefully our story can sparkle other devoted volunteers and organizations who make great effort for rebuilding Nepal, and also inspire more people to join us.

Finally, my special thanks for all your supports including: IDEA Foundation Ltd., Architecture for the Mass, Design for People Ltd. and every world citizen! 

-Christie Lam
(Professor of Anthropology at Osaka University, Japan)

The website for project chance will be  launched on 25 April, 2016 on the one year anniversary of the earthquake in Nepal. All new updates and news from project design, development, challenges, stories, inspirations and updates will appear here.

To follow the work of Future Village over the past few months in response to the earthquake, and to see complete sequence of events, please visit our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/future.village.nepal/

To know about the work of Future Village from 2004 in Nepal to 'empower the poor to sustainable livelihood', please visit  http://www.future-village-nepal.org/

After successfully completing a study trip to the village, Rob Kuipers and Varun Khanna got back from the village where they are overseeing the community disaster redevelopment projects for schools and homes.

More photos: ​http://g30.hus.osaka-u.ac.jp/latest-news/archives/74

We have our first house being set up by the villagers in our project area in Nepal. This is a 9 magnitude earthquake resistant steel frame that came all the way from Chegdu (China), designed by a world famous architect from Taiwan. The walls and the roof can be built using materials available locally and for very cheap by villagers who are exchanging their labour for one another as capital.
​
An interesting fact: Each temporary shelter after the March 2011 Japan earthquake and tsunami costed over 60000 dollars. This permanent house will be costing mere 3000 dollars. While the local families are paying one-third of the cost of building, Future Village (Nepal) :: 未來之村 (尼泊爾) is arranging funds to provide subsidies to cover the remaining cost (so always looking for support!).

Some of our team members are at the Tibet-Nepal border to receive the truck carrying the pre-fabricated steel frames for reconstruction in Katunge. The truck has travelled all the way from Chengdu in China to Nepal. As the charity products get transferred to a local Nepalese truck at the border, they will be brought to the project area. We expect the first seven houses will be built in the month of January 2016. Everyone is excited and nervous at the same time. 

Please continue to support us so that we can build many more homes with the local people!

I've been to "the future village" in Nepal for almost three weeks and the many things I have experienced here were totally out of my imagination as a city dweller in Hong Kong. The heavy rain last night was another lead to let me know that why this place is called the "future" village because "now" would be too heavy-hearted.
Yesterday my good friend Shree, a 13 years old boy invited me to his home for a dinner. I've asked him for a few times whether he has asked
his parents for permission or not. He told me that everybody in his family is so excited for my visit. To them, receiving a dinner guest is like having God to be their guest. And wow, that metaphor was just too exaggerated and made me so eager to visit them. In that visit, I could feel Shree and his family's tremendous enthusiasm. Though their house was temporarily made from iron sheets after the earthquake, I could feel the warmth of this family as they all stick with each other. We had a chat after the dinner and as expected Nepal scores high in the happiness index. We talked about the frequent aftershocks, the beasts in the nearby forest, how hot was that in summer living in this temporary house etc... everything was like jokes and the house was full of laughter.

In midnight, it rained torrentially. This was the first time I encountered such an unusual heavy rain. I visited Shree's house again in the morning and noticed that the three sibling did not attend school. I asked them whether there was radio broadcast announcing no school today. However, to my surprise, Shree told me that he did not have umbrella and therefore he could not be able to go to the school as he has to walk on the mountain road for about two hours. If the rain was not so heavy, he would make the way to go to the school. In fact, it is very dangerous to walk on the mountain road when it rains heavily, and I could not imagine such an essential thing like an umbrella would they be so short of. Shree told me calmly with excitement that the strong wind and heavy
rain last night made his house to swing from side to side. The wind and rain pouring in from the window, some flowing from the cracks of the rooftops to the living room and they would have to place bucket on the floor to hold the water. I touched his bed and it was wet. Shree smiled and told me that he felt freezing cold last night. Of course, the temperature now was only 10 degree celsius but after the earthquake, all their belongings including many of the clothes were gone. I being a volunteer, living in the only brick house (the infirmary) in this village, would still feel the chill, not to mention them. And now is just October, how could they survive under the chilly winter this December?



Shree was happy to say that he was so grateful that Hong Kong people
donated bedquilts to them. I originally thought that was an additional
splendor but it turned out to be a timely present because their existing things that could defend against the cold were given to the children, however that would still not sufficient.
I left Shree's house with a heavy heart. The rain was getting smaller,
I met Kusum and his brother holding a tattered umbrella heading to the
school. The two little brother and sister huddled under the torn umbrella, luckily it was just a 15 minutes walk from their home to the school.Kusum told me that she began to bring her lunch box to school today because the 6-month meal subsidy had came to an end. I was curious that what did they bring for lunch? In fact, it was just snack of about the size of one fifth of an instant noodle. When I was about to ask her if that was adequate under this climate, they had already gone to the school in lively steps.
I heard that Nepalese are happy though they are poor. If happiness does not exist anymore, they would be poor in nothing.

Can you offer them some help? No matter how much is the donation, it
would mean a lot to them. The cost of reconstruction would be a huge
amount. While their average monthly income is just around HK$455, the
cost of rebuilding a house would need HK$17940. They will soon need to
face the first harsh winter after the mega earthquake. If you could
help, no matter how big or small your contribution would be highly
appreciated as it would give them a hope for the future - to rebuild
their home.
We appreciate your help to the villagers.. 
Below please find the details if you would like to make a donation: 
■ Hong Kong - HSBC：067-3-044756 (Ms Lam Lai Ming)*； future.village.nepal@gmail.com / christie.lai.lam@gmail.com

So amazing for the team spirit of two volunteer teams from Hong Kong! The Future Village House was cleaned up within one week! Our heartfelt thanks for their passion and action to make one step forward to the rebuild task. Let's move on and take action to support us: 
1. School rebuilding program
Target: to rebuild the 2 serious impacted school in the area (Gyanodoya Lower Secondary School 及 Kanya Devi Lower Secondary School)
No. of beneficiaries: 250 students from the 2 school
Targeted fundraising amount: USD 30,000
2. Future Village rebuilding program
Target: to rebuild the house for 130 families and the two-storey "Future Village" House.
No. of beneficiaries: 130 house (for 130 families, approx. 700 villagers.
Targeted fundraising amount: a total of USD210,000 ( HKD1.6million)

Future Village “Heart-to-heart” Rebuilding and Fundraising Campaign
Time flies, it has been 4 months since the meta earthquake happened in Nepal, the first stage of emergency relief has been completed, and now the entire country is facing another critical moment – rebuilding villagers home and public facilities (e.g. school, water pipes etc.) . Although villagers can feed themleves by working extremly hard, however the reality is the school collapsed, school children can only have class in rooms with vey limited resources, villagers' temporary shelters made with sync also kept leaking. The recent earthquake created another worse outcome, which the poor living standard of villagers became even worse, and the villagers are now suffering with all kind of uncertainties.
Is there a way we can help them out? Yes we can! Supporters can simply donate in terms of cash or manpower in order to provide a longer term support to the villagers.
Future Village will commence the rebuild of villagers home and public facilities in Katunge District No. 9 shortly.
Highlights of rebuilding plan
1. Two teams of volunteers will go to Future Village on 27 September and 4 October respectively for a 3-weeks clearing service and get ready for the rebuild. Heartfelt thanks to the volunteers and wish them all the best. Professional volunteers with architect background will also have field visit to Future Village in October, in order to have modifications and final testing on the premises design with anti shock capability.

2. School rebuilding program
Target: to rebuild the 2 serious impacted school in the area (Gyanodoya Lower Secondary School 及 Kanya Devi Lower Secondary School)
Rebuild timeline: mid November 2015 to March 2016
Program details: to build 14 classrooms with anti shock capability base on the design provided by the Architecture for the Mass team.
No. of beneficiaries: 250 students from the 2 school
Targeted fundraising amount: USD 30,000
3. Future Village rebuilding program
Target: to rebuild the house for 130 families and the two-storey "Future Village" House.
Rebuild timeline: mid November 2015 to 2017
Program details: to rebuild premises with anti shock capability base on the co-design provided by the IDEA FOUNDATION and Design For People Co.,Ltd. & Hsieh Ying Chun Architects
No. of beneficiaries: 130 house (for 130 families, approx. 700 villagers.
Targeted fundraising amount: USD 2,300 per house (villagers will share parts of the costs and manpower). The total budget would be approx. USD300,000 (HKD2.3 million). The remaining balance for the emergency relief was approx. USD90,000 (HKD700,000), hence a total of USD210,000 ( HKD1.6million) is still outstanding.

It's a long difficult journey for the rebuilding program, but we can definitely witness the new "Future Village" represents hope to be rebuilt and continue to provide service, all villagers can have a safe home and school if we stay heart-to-heart and won't let go.
Please support "Future Village" rebuilding program (please state the preferred supporting particulars or "Future Village" rebuilding program if necessary)
Donation Methods:
■Hong Kong - HSBC：067-3-044756 (Ms Lam Lai Ming)； 
future.village.nepal@gmail.com / christie.lai.lam@gmail.com 
■China/Taiwan/ Macau - please PM or email us and we will provide the bank-in details. (future.village.nepal@gmail.com ) 
■Singapore / Malaysia - Sarah (oo.sarah@hotmail.com)

An update from the relief trip last Friday by volunteers from HK and Singapore. The team distributed 256kg of supplies to Katunje villagers - 50 tarpaulins, 94 blankets, 120 t-shirts, medicine, face masks and torchlight. Part of the funds collected from Singapore donors are also used to disburse 2,000 rupees (US$19) of relief funds to 141 families in Ward 9 and 300kg of rice and plastics. The same 2,000 rupees will be given to another 511 families in other wards to help them. Another S$4,000 is set aside to build a temporary community center (to tide through the monsoon) and purchase water tanks for the villagers.
What lies ahead in the next few months:
1. Purchase of fertilizers to help with the planting season
2. Clear the debris of the destroyed homes and FV house
3. Rebuilding the homes of the 129 families in Ward 9 after monsoon
4. Re-building the FV house and the school (down the hill)

​

Nepal rocked by another 7.4 magnitude quake around 1pm today. Although the major earthquake hit the East of Kathmandu, which is a bit distance from Dhading where Future Village located. The villagers were still thrilled and rushed into the fields, they were also traumatized like the rest of the Nepalis after experienced the serious quake 2 weeks ago.
Christie got in touch with some of the villagers and learnt that they are safe but the condition of the seriously damaged buildings now got even worse, which everything now have to start from ground zero. 
Villagers from Future Village desperately need your support like the rest who suffered from the disaster. Future Village urged for your support for the emergency relief and long term rebuild. 
Donation methods:
■Hong Kong - HSBC：067-3-044756 (Ms Lam Lai Ming)； 
future.village.nepal@gmail.com / christie.lai.lam@gmail.com 
■China - please PM or email us and we will provide the bank-in details. (future.village.nepal@gmail.com ) 
■Macau - Gordon (gobluecows@hotmail.com)
■Singapore - Sarah (oo.sarah@hotmail.com)
■Malaysia - Yew (yewguoyong@gmail.com)

Finally, here are some firsthand yet heartbreaking information from Dambar. The houses in Dhading were damaged seriously, Katunge is one of the most affected village in the area. Katunge ward 9 (where FV locates), total 129 houses, only few houses were little broken, 90% of the buildings including FV and the school sponsored by FV were seriously damaged and need to be rebuilt.

None of the emergency relief organisation reaches Katunge yet. Dambar was being told that the villagers need food desperately, most of the household rely on rice as their main intake. Unfortunately the limited reserve also got polluted by the earth and rain after the quake. Each household received 3kg of rice from the local government few days ago, which cannot last for long and no one knows when is the next distribution. Dambar bought approx. 60 bags (25kg each) of rice for the village, a bag of rice could only share between 2 families for instant relief, and a bag of 25kg rice could only last for a family of five barely a month. i.e. 130 bags of rice are needed, however those from Dhading are already sold out and Southern Chitwan is the closest area if they want to order more.
Villagers are now sleeping in the fields, temporary shelters build with plastic sheets, reusable roof from the damaged house plus simple wood stand are desperately needed and the basic material cost approx. NPR2000-3000. Villagers stated that they won’t have sufficient time for the rebuild before monsoon, hence they must first clean up the broken houses and resume farming during monsoon.
As monsoon is coming soon, if the villagers miss this farming season, that means they may have to stave during winter. Villagers used to keep some cow dung as fertilizers, but also being washed out after the earthquake, hence they hope to have subsidies to buy fertilizers for their farming. Luckily there are still quite a few cows survived which every two families can share one.
Overall, rebuild the houses are not the first priority, the most desperately needs are: ordering the rice, to build temporary shelters, to buy fertilizers and resume farming during monsoon and to clean the broken houses. Luckily, there were not many injuries, hence tones of medical supplies are not necessary.
Futhermore, we are highly appreciated for those who would like to be a volunteer for FV since the earthquake happened. But please consider the followings if you are planning to come: the FV house is serious damaged, hence volunteers can only do camping while they are here and the condition may be even worse if raining. Monsoon season (mid June to Aug) is coming soon, due to the situation in FV & the roads up to FV during monsoon, volunteers can visit FV before mid of June and we will suspend all the voluntary work afterwards until end of monsoon. Basically, the main task for volunteers now is to help the villagers to clean the damaged houses. Also, as the school is badly damaged, students are expected to resume class next week but in the outdoor area and the morning class provided by FV will be suspended too.
Due to the severe situation, FV need your donation to support the emergency relief plus long term rebuild. Please share the message and call for more support! Thank you very much!

Finally, here are some firsthand yet heartbreaking information from Dambar. The houses in Dhading were damaged seriously, Katunge is one of the most affected village in the area. Katunge ward 9 (where FV locates), total 129 houses, only few houses were little broken, 90% of the buildings including FV and the school sponsored by FV were seriously damaged and need to be rebuilt.
None of the emergency relief organisation reaches Katunge yet. Dambar was being told that the villagers need food desperately, most of the household rely on rice as their main intake. Unfortunately the limited reserve also got polluted by the earth and rain after the quake. Each household received 3kg of rice from the local government few days ago, which cannot last for long and no one knows when is the next distribution. Dambar bought approx. 60 bags (25kg each) of rice for the village, a bag of rice could only share between 2 families for instant relief, and a bag of 25kg rice could only last for a family of five barely a month. i.e. 130 bags of rice are needed, however those from Dhading are already sold out and Southern Chitwan is the closest area if they want to order more. 
Villagers are now sleeping in the fields, temporary shelters build with plastic sheets, reusable roof from the damaged house plus simple wood stand are desperately needed and the basic material cost approx. NPR2000-3000. Villagers stated that they won’t have sufficient time for the rebuild before monsoon, hence they must first clean up the broken houses and resume farming during monsoon.
As monsoon is coming soon, if the villagers miss this farming season, that means they may have to stave during winter. Villagers used to keep some cow dung as fertilizers, but also being washed out after the earthquake, hence they hope to have subsidies to buy fertilizers for their farming. Luckily there are still quite a few cows survived which every two families can share one.

Overall, rebuild the houses are not the first priority, the most desperately needs are: ordering the rice, to build temporary shelters, to buy fertilizers and resume farming during monsoon and to clean the broken houses. Luckily, there were not many injuries, hence tones of medical supplies are not necessary.
Futhermore, we are highly appreciated for those who would like to be a volunteer for FV since the earthquake happened. But please consider the followings if you are planning to come: the FV house is serious damaged, hence volunteers can only do camping while they are here and the condition may be even worse if raining. Monsoon season (mid June to Aug) is coming soon, due to the situation in FV & the roads up to FV during monsoon, volunteers can visit FV before mid of June and we will suspend all the voluntary work afterwards until end of monsoon. Basically, the main task for volunteers now is to help the villagers to clean the damaged houses. Also, as the school is badly damaged, students are expected to resume class next week but in the outdoor area and the morning class provided by FV will be suspended too.
Due to the severe situation, FV need your donation to support the emergency relief plus long term rebuild. Please share the message and call for more support! Thank you very much!
​

$3410 raised for Future Village, Katunje, Nepal during this morning charity event. A very sincere and grateful thanks to Collin and friends for put together a Cycle and Yoga events with just a few day notice. Ben Cheong, Magical Light Foundation and Sarah, Future Village thanks all participants of this events, including those who contributed funds but was not able to join in the activities.

A group of students from Osaka University, Japan have organized a fundraising for helping earthquake victims in Nepal, especially the villagers from Katunge village.
Up to now, the disaster link up supporters from Asian countries including Hong Kong, mainland China, Macau, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, and also Australia.
Let's join & rebuild their "Future" together!!!

Heartfelt thanks for the generous support from all the friends of Future Village! Uncountable of warm and encouraging words plus blessings via donations have been received since the emergency appeal launched and these definitely are incredible support to the villagers and volunteers. 
Some anonymous donations were received, grateful if donors can send us an email once a donation was made together with the donor information and scanned copy of the bank-in slip to future.village.nepal@gmail.com . 
Donors will receive a confirmation email once the donation is confirmed received, and the acknowledgement receipts will be issued from mid-May onwards. As Future Village is a registered NGO in Nepal, hence the receipt is to show our appreciation and record purpose only, which is not eligible for tax deduction.
Emergency humanitarian relief would be our main focus at this critical stage, which include: 1. to provide temporary shelter, drinking water, food and medicine aids to the local villagers plus to have subsidiary to affected families. 2. to rebuild houses, school and to ensure villagers can have morning farming during monsoon season. 
As we are still awaiting for the updates on the situation and how worse the village affected in order to identity the most desperate needs, hence we would require a bit more time to on the consolidation and evaluation. Please stay tune for the updates. 
Furthermore, we received a few enquiries of providing voluntary support on the rebuild including forming voluntary groups, as mentioned, the local situation is uncertain, hence please wait till further updates.