SHANTI SEWA GRIHA

Pashupati

Tilganga

P.O. Box 7861

Kathmandu

All-seeing eyes of Buddha (Photo thanks to Sheila)

"Shanti Sewa Griha is a non-government organisation (NGO) established in 1992 through Nepal-German co-operation. Since then it has been helping the poor, the helpless and especially people with leprosy, giving love and care, medical help and education. Leprosy is a chronic disease, which even with treatment leaves some deformity. More than this physical deformity, the stigma attached to this disease is a major problem for the patients too. Ultimately this can lead to a total banishment by their community and even by their own family.

Thus starting from just 13 patients, 4 rooms and a general OPD in 1992, Shanti has come a long way towards fulfilling its aims and objectives. It is now sheltering 706 patients, including 160 children and providing many services including a school." [Taken from Progress Report 2001]

Traditional Nepali art by the Shanti artists.

For me the first impression on flying into Kathmandu was how green the valley was, especially after the dryness of Mongolia. Unfortunately as September is still within the last month of the monsoon the cloud was low and I could not see the Himalayas. Still the forest clad foothills and bright green of the rice fields gave a very vivid picture.

From the ground I continue to be most impressed by the amount of garden work done by the Nepali people. Any stretch of free land is cultivated for rice or vegetables, everyone who can, will grow their own food.

Green and terraced hillside at Budhanilkantha

The second impression was perhaps the noise and busy confusion of the streets of Kathmandu city! The streets are narrow and winding with no obvious landmarks for easy orientation, and they often look the same. There are no street names and I found it difficult to find my bearings until I had the help of friends who had been here many times before. Once the main bus routes are mastered the city and the friendliness of the people becomes a lot more accessible.

"Nepal is a land of great altitudinal and scenic contrasts. Jagged peaks, the highest in the world, delineate the northern border while placid streams meander through hot, tropical forests and lowland cultivations in the south. Within this unique setting live nearly 800 species of birds. Nepal can boast of exceptional beauty as well as unusual diversity in its flora and fauna. This variety is due to altitudinal fluctuations and also to Nepal’s geographical position in Asia. In a bio-geographical sense, Nepal is at the centre of Asia."

[Taken from Birds of Nepal, Fleming, Fleming and Bangdel, 1984]

Himalayas from Jomsom (Photo thanks to Sheila)

Dor Bahadur Bista divides the country into 4 major regions in his book, People of Nepal, 1996.

1. The Himalayan highlands with snow mountains and glacial valleys.
2. The lower Himalayan ranges with their green forests and long slopes leading to fertile valleys such as Kathmandu and others.
3. The forest areas of the Inner Terai, the low river valleys and the foothills of the Churiya, Siva-Lekh range, all of them with a very hot climate.
4. The flat and fertile land of the Terai, the north edge of the Gangetic plain.

"With a few exceptions the great majority of the Nepali people live in well defined, specific geographic regions. Tibetan and Mongoloid speaking people in the mountains and Indo-Aryan, Meditteranean-type people in the southern agriculturally productive areas of the Terai. Owing to the lack of communication between different groups, each remained in its traditional area, isolated from the other groups until recently. Every single group [and there are many] spoke a different language or dialect, developed its own marriage and social rules and became ethnocentric in almost every respect. There was no feeling of being one nationality, one nation."

[Teej, a Hindu festival at Pashupatinath]

Kathmandu is predominantly Hindu and celebrates an enormous amount of festivals throughout the year. Celebrations often involve fasting by women for the health and longevity of their husbands, offering food, flowers and sacred cows milk to various Gods, purification in sacred waters and feasting at the end of the festival. There is also a strong tradition of Buddhism here and several of the sacred sites of worship are dedicated to both religions, worshipping peacefully side by side.

The sheer amount of temples and the beauty of the workmanship of these and thecentral Durbar squares of Kathmandu valley’s 3 cities, (Bhaktapur, Patan and Kathmandu) add to the magical mixture.

"Nepal weaves a net out of splendour and pettiness, squalour and colour, wisdom and innocence, tranquility and gaiety, complacence and discontent, indolence and energy, generosity and cunning, freedom and bondage – and in this bewildering mesh foreign hearts are trapped…" [Dervla Murphy - The Waiting Land, 1967]

Although written 35 years ago this description by Dervla Murphy still seems to fit the effects of Kathmandu valley, and especially the city with its whirlwind of colours and smells and sights that left me quite dizzy and somewhat overwhelmed at first! Now, as time slips away and I’m leaving, the same kaleidoscope leaves me smiling!

[Shanti School at Budhanilkantha]

"Shanti fortunately owns 13,233 sqare metres of land at Budhanilkantha, donated by the Lions Club of Dortmund and BMZ Germany in 1993…As the children of Shanti started growing and as the cost of schooling also began to rise, a school was established at Budhanilkantha in 1999." [Taken from the Progress Report.]

The school is situated in the Shanti community established on the picturesque and peaceful hillside about half an hours walk from the village. At this rainy time of year it definitely is a walk as the road is incredibly muddy! Mostly this walk and escape from the fumes of the city was blissful. The area is surrounded by bamboo and pine forests and Buzzards circle over head ‘mewing’, the only other noise being the goats calling to each other on the hills! Waterfalls stream down through the trees and the low cloud clings to the steep sides of the dark green hills. On a down side the school day is reduced by an hour and a half due to the bus ride and walk, it can also be problematic in severe rain.

I was given class 4 and 5 to work with, which meant up to 22 children aged from 10 to 14 and mostly boys, for a change! In order to have a large enough space to work in, the Shanti people kindly let us work in their weaving house, a tall, octagonal building providing creative space for weaving, sewing and knitting. By sharing the space it meant the Shanti workers could also watch and learn from every step of the project. I was welcomed so warmly and given much help and support by the workers.

In order that the children could still do their ‘main lesson’ in the morning I was given an hour and three quarters to work with them, split with lunch in the middle.

As this is not a great deal of time I decided to work with the simplest felt making again, the old favourite of balls and bracelets!

Some ended up looking like planets with gas rings!

The story is told that when ‘Parvati’, the mother goddess was taking her bath she asked that no one should disturb her. She set her young son to stand guard with instructions to let no one in. When Lord Shiva, Parvati’s husband, arrived his son would not let him in and in his anger at being refused he cut off the son’s head. In order to save the child’s life and appease the mother goddess it was said that the head of the first being encountered should be brought. A young elephant was the first creature seen and so its head became the head of their son, now called, ‘Ganesh’. It is to him that all prayers must first be made with an offering of coconut, before continuing with prayers to whichever god you choose.

I took inspiration from Ganesh and made some templates of trunk, ears and eyes. The children then cut out their shapes in coloured semi-felt and created beautiful ‘Ganesh’ like pictures of elephant heads.

I was pleased to hear from the children just how much they knew about their country. They were eager to put the flag and national symbols of birds and Rhodedendron onto the picture. They also knew about the BIG mountains and Sagarmatha, Mount Everest. Due to the shortage of time, we ended up spending two days drawing pictures after splitting into 3 groups to represent, the Himalayas, Kathmandu Valley and the Terai.

The energy and smiles of the children were seemingly endless!

Once again the children really enjoyed the felting process, using lots of soap! So I decided to use their energy and enthusiasm for them to make the semi-felt colours for their drawings.

With only a few pairs of very poor scissors the children had to learn a bit more about patience and sharing! Once again the Shanti workers helped by lending us their huge fabric shears, sometimes too much of a handful for small hands! Still everyone got on with the work and managed as best as they could!

Some children spent a long time working to get their felt picture as exact to their drawing with lots of delicate work:-

Nepal’s National Bird, ‘Danphe’ – Impeyan Pheasant

It took me a while to believe that this colourful bird was real! It is said to be famous for its nine different colours of plumage and for having flowers on its head! The picture of the Impeyan Pheasant is amazingly colourful and the head feathers have bobbles that really do look like flowers!

Keeping the sun theme for the top border!

Trusting that Nepal written backward in Sanskrit was correct!

Creating the Himalayas in a day!

Contemplating Colours!

Before the backing layers go on!

I ended up with a team of 5 children who stayed back after school for two days in a row to help put the extra layers onto the felt and then again to finish the felting! They chose to stay with me and I was very glad for their help!

One of the Shanti workers also joined the team, which always works best when working together!

The next day we scattered soapy water over the wool, after explaining that the Mongolian’s would use some horse milk as a blessing. We decided to think up of blessings for Nepal as we carefully poured water all over it!

Then came the fun part of slipping about all over soapy plastic laid out over the felt!

During lunch time the teachers helped with a bit more rubbing, another great help!

Then the HARD work!

We sang some songs and watched as a flood of water spread out across the concrete floor, which nobody seemed too worried about, other than me!!! Everyone was great about putting up with me making such a mess and taking over their work space for three weeks!

Eventually, before everyone else went for the bus home we were able to carefully peel off the material from the felt. While we all admired the work we gave each other a pat on the back!

The finished piece shows tiger, crocodile and elephant in the Terai, Stupa, with Buddha’s all-seeing eyes and temples with monkey’s and a sacred cow, for the Kathmandu Valley, and then snow leopard, wild dog and mountain goat for the Himalayas. The bottom border has a traditional Madel, double ended drum and a crown as well as Rhodedendron and ducks!

A proud and happy team of good workers!!!

After a small discussion we decided to go with the elephant theme and make a 3D elephant head for the school, with the name of the school and a sun above it! Everyone helped cutting out letters and making designs and then some helped with the felting as I felted the main head.

Red was chosen as the colour of ‘Ganesh’ and a strong colour for Nepal.

Once again everyone who helped to set up the project and give me support and accommodation and food: Fionnula, Halina, Sheila and Mona.

A Special thanks to Mona for all her extra work in translating the children’s words so well and everything else and more!!

All the teachers, workers and of course the children of Shanti.

To contact the school:-

See address and email at the top!

To contact me:-

To go to the main web site:-