Dear all,
Here is the latest update of our project for Hopeful Home and the situation with regards to Covid-19 in Nepal.
Covid-19 in Nepal: Nepal is still in a lock down, although the rules are being relaxed a little. The number of new infections per day is around 1100 and the death toll is now 436. About 10,000 tests are carried out per day, which is very low compared to Western countries. The lock down is taking a heavy toll on the population. There is no more work for day workers, construction workers, tourism workers, and without government support, people fall back on to harsh poverty. Every day thousands of meals are distributed in Kathmandu by three different charity organizations. The situation remains worrisome and with the death toll slowly increasing, the end is not yet in sight.
Painting of the new house for Hopeful Home and more: In July the children moved to a new rental house located in ‘Duwakot’. It’s a near the previous home outside Bhaktapur. Gopini Wosti, the manager of Hopeful Home, has been looking for a new accommodation for a long time, and fortunately she managed to conclude a five-year lease contract. Laxmi Support has experienced five different houses for Hopeful Home in the past 14 years and this new house is a lot more spacious than the previous ones, although the garden is somewhat smaller.

Laxmi Support has painted all the rooms and halls. Ram, of Laxmi Support, and Gopini went out together to purchase all the paint materials. They have also bought metal paint so that all the bunk bed frames could be painted too. Ten painters worked hard for a couple of days to get the job done. Instead of bare grey cement walls, the entire house is now painted a fresh very Nepali pink!

We have also provided a new carpet, curtains and bed sheets. Ram and Gopini went out for a second time to buy all these materials in the nearby Bhaktapur market. We’ve chosen for an average quality carpet in a beautiful red color with gold-colored pattern (red is Nepal’s favourite color). In 2018 Laxmi Support also provided carpet in the bedrooms of the previous house; this carpet has now been re-used in the hall on the first and second floor of the new house.
The children are very happy and according to Gopini it is the best house they’ve ever lived in. A huge thank you goes out to all our sponsors for their continued financial support; without your donations we would have not been able to carry out these support projects for the children of Hopeful Home.

Laxmi Support stall on our lane: Unfortunately, all English summer markets were canceled due to the corona virus, so to raise some funds for our projects we need to look for new alternatives. Therefore throughout the summer we’ve set up a mini stall on the lane of our house. It turned out to be a great success! We sell Samantha’s crocheted keyrings of cute jellyfish, little whales and love hearts and also lavender bags. Very popular also were the beautifully handmade mugs, donated by a good friend of Alex and Sam. In addition to our lovely neighbors, who have bought something nice from our stall, there were also a fair number of regular walkers going up to the Moors passing our stall. And it turned out: that nothing can be more fun than to clip a cute little crocheted jellyfish on your backpack. We have raised a wonderful amount of £ 380and as long as the rains hold off, Samantha will keep on crocheting!

Online Stop:Another initiative is the launch of our Online Shop on our website! Bracelets and necklaces from Bali, glitter storage boxes and keyrings crocheted by Samantha. Orders can be placed from the Netherlands and England. If you would like to place an order from a another country, please send us an e-mail. Needless to say that all proceeds will go directly to our projects. Click here to view our new online shop: https://laxmi-support.com/store/
Follow us on Facebook to stay up to date with the Covid-19 situation in Nepal and for more news and photos of our projects. Or check out our websiteand YouTube channel.
Big Namaste from us all,
Jolanda, Geke, Sylvia, Ram, Alex & Samantha