Monitoring visit to Hagam

In March, Brita Pohl (PHASE Austria Chairperson) had the opportunity to visit Hagam (Sindhupalchokk District) for the first time since 2007. The group joining the Hagam PHASE staff included Rudra Neupane and Prem Bahadur Bhattarai (PHASE Nepal Programme Managers), Dr. Gerda Pohl (PHASE health advisor), Margaret Lally (PHASE Worldwide Board member) and Tom Edwards (PHASE Worldwide Director).

The 2015 earthquakes and a devastating landslide in the same year, Yanglakot village, where PHASE Austria implemented its first project ever – the construction of a secondary school – was nearly completely destroyed.
Currently, PHASE supports the reconstruction of an outreach clinic in this community (funded by NAK Humanitas). One of the lovely moments of this visits was meeting some of the graduates of the local secondary school: two employees of PHASE Nepal in the community who were among the first graduates of the school, and a primary school teacher. Without the commitment of PHASE Austria to fund the buildings for a secondary school, they most probably would not have had the opportunity to pass their school leaving exams.

PHASE Nepal has been working in Hagam since 2006, and the development of this community is palpable, even with the immense setbacks the destruction of 2015 meant. Since then, PHASE has mainly worked in reconstruction in this area: the secondary school is being rebuilt (funded by Caritas Austria), the new health post is nearly finished, a water supply project was implemented with funding from Diakonie Katastrophenhilfe. However, PHASE also runs livelihoods projects there (vegetable farming).