Message from Dr Christie Lam on the earthquake anniversary: "It’s never easy to go from zero to hero."

Lai Ming (Christie) at Future Village in 2009

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)

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