A book is a gift you can open again and again

The treacherous and complex landscape is a principal problem responsible for widespread ill health; inequitable educational facilities, and ineffective health services in rural areas of Nepal. Given the extensive needs of country populations living in extreme poverty, coupled with severe inadequacies of national health and education services, there is high illiteracy along with the increased prevalence of infectious diseases, malnutrition, poor hygiene and sanitation in the remote regions of Nepal.

The substantial proportion of children not attending schools in rural areas are often attributed to lack of encouragement to study. There is a lack of adequate library rooms, which are usually converted classrooms with insufficient space in many Nepalese government schools. Furthermore, few students of remote areas in any country (less than 5 percent was an average estimate) had access to core subject textbooks and gain to non-core textbooks were admittedly very scarce. The lower economic status, as well as illiteracy, are reported by most authors to decline parental willingness to purchase secondary books.

Therefore, the team at Mountain Heart Nepal aims to upgrade the existing library of the government schools by delivering educational and engaging books. In places where there are no libraries, we distribute secondary textbooks to the school children in hand.

The overall objective of the program is to improve school attendance and improve health and disease awareness, changed attitudes and practices in Nepal by properly selecting appropriate books. The program is run in parallel with our outreach clinics to reduce the program cost.