The founding of Volunteer Service in Nepal
Thanks to Emma Cahilog-Rahman, the Executive Director and Founder of Volunteer Service in Nepal (VSN), the children have an excellent chance of doing just that. When Emma took a holiday from her position as a university professor of philosophy in the Philippines to trek in Nepal, she fell in love, not only with the beauty of that rugged country but with the man who became her husband. Soon after her marriage, she determined “to do something for Nepal.”
     New Zealander Colin Salisbury was just then organizing Global Volunteer Network (GVN) and was looking for a local partner in Nepal. He met Emma at a time that she realized that helping children was the most pressing need. The on-going Maoist insurrection had left countless orphans in the remote villages and many other families, fearing for their children’s wellbeing, had sent them to one of the numerous children’s homes that were springing up in the relative safety of the Kathmandu Valley. When ten volunteers from New Zealand arrived in 2003, it was these children that they and Emma set out to help.
     The challenges were enormous. Many, not all, of the orphanages those first volunteers worked in were run by owners who took advantage of the generosity of donors and the fears of poor parents, most of whom paid relatively large sums to place their children. Emma drew up many contracts with the owners, to specify how they would use the resources VSN provided and time after time the contract was broken. When they raised money to provide a water filter for a home, the owner moved it into his quarters and the children had no clean water. A facility was renovated by VSN so children who had been sleeping outside could sleep inside and the owner moved his family into the space and the children continued to sleep outside. Early on it was clear that VSN needed to operate their own children’s homes in order to ensure adequate care.      Now, just five years later VSN is operating two children’s homes, serving 51 children, and in addition are providing volunteers to other children’s homes when feasible or to teach in government schools. Emma’s mantra is sustainability. VSN must have control over the homes so they can ensure consistent care for the children and the homes must function well even if there are few volunteers. As GVN has expanded their program — they now send volunteers to 26 countries (including the United States) — fewer volunteers come to Nepal. “Everything we do must be sustainable,” Emma says.

Comparing care-givers
As part of our volunteer orientation we toured both of VSN’s homes plus another run by a private owner. The contrast was startling and disturbing. In the two VSN homes the children were happy, clean and well-fed, kind to each other, full of curiosity about us; the homes were bright, attractive, simple but clean, and the children have a future, a bright future. VSN sends them to a private school where the language of instruction is English, and is committed to supporting them through college. These children will be well prepared to do something for Nepal.
     At the owner-run home, there were no adults present the day we showed up and the 50 children housed there were unkempt. Several seemed listless; others were obviously glad to see us and followed us about as we looked into their dim rooms; four little boys, six or seven years old, were asleep on the floor in one room; another boy, about seven, was sitting alone, tugging at his ear. When we looked closer, it was clear that he had a severe ear infection — swollen and painful to the touch. One of our group had some Tylenol which the VSN staff person cut into thirds, gave the child, wrapped the other two in a scrap of paper and told him to take one at bedtime and one the next morning. She asked one of the older boys to keep an eye on him and then we left, uneasy and heartsick.
     The focus now in such homes is on the health of the children; a health volunteer stops in regularly to do a health check-up including taking children who are ill to a clinic, but VSN is no longer willing to provide anything beyond basic medical care because they can’t guarantee that their efforts will help the children. While I was there, the manager of another poorly run-home said he no longer wanted to work with VSN. When the volunteer told the children she had to leave, they said, “Now we won’t have enough to eat again.”
     The children at Brighter Futures always had enough to eat. At my last meal there Sita Didi added a fried egg and French fried potatoes (chips) to my dal bhaat — an unimaginable treat. (I first heard about it from the children — “Didi has made chips for you!” “Just for me?” “Yes.”) It sounds silly, but when I saw the chips and egg on my plate, only my plate, it brought tears to my eyes. The children got quiet, watching me, wondering what was going to happen as I sat cross-legged and choked up before my plate of dal bhaat and chips. I took a deep breath, picked up a chip, nodded my thanks to Sita Didi and we all began to eat.
     When I came home, my grandchildren saw my pictures and listened to my stories. “Did you tell them about us?” one asked. VSN keeps meticulous records on their children, including family history: “parents killed by Maoists,” “no known family,” “living parents, no contact,” “father dead, mother unable to cope,” “parents killed,” “no parents.” So yes, I had told them about my grandchildren, but not too much. The contrast was too great. Still my granddaughter’s question lingers because she and those children are deeply connected and dependent on each other.

It is the volunteer who is the luckiest
There is a truism in teaching that says it is the teacher who learns the most; the corollary is true for volunteers. It is the one who volunteers, who tries to give, who receives the most. Those children were glad to know me, they loved my stories, they learned to knit and finger crochet because I was there, but right now there is another volunteer who is loving them, helping them, teaching them karate or singing songs with them, maybe even somebody who can tell a good Robin Hood story. I was part of their lives for one month, a tiny footnote as their story moves forward. They will forget me, but I won’t forget them because they showed me the beauty of the human spirit, they reminded me that joy and curiosity are fundamental human qualities; that it is never about what you have but who you are; and that all children are our children.
     Emma is now looking for volunteer opportunities for the children. “They have so much,” she said. “Ample food, health care, a good education. We can’t make it too easy for them. They must give back too.” How lucky they are to have a chance to volunteer because it is the volunteer who benefits the most. I know.

Kathleen Coskran is a writer and teacher. Her collection of short stories, The High Price of Everything, won a Minnesota Book Award as did Tanzania on Tuesday: Writing by American Women Abroad which she co-edited. She is the recipient of numerous artists' fellowships and residencies including an NEA Fellowship, a Bush Artist's Fellowship, and two grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board. Since her retirement as head of Lake Country School, a large, nationally known Montessori school that serves children through age 15, she and her husband Chuck, (Ethiopia 65-67, Kenya staff, 68-70) walked the thousand-mile pilgrimage from Le Puy en Velay, France, to Santiago, Spain and the following year taught at Zhejiang College of Media and Communications in Hangzhou, China. In May of 2008 she traveled to Nepal to work in a children’s home and develop curriculum for Volunteer Service in Nepal (VSN).