History

It all began in 2002

In 2002 Andrea Werder, a primary teacher from Switzerland, together with Santos Dahal in Kathmandu (Nepal), began teaching children from the poorest backgrounds. They were all children whose parents could not manage to bring together the necessary money to finance a school education.
If they had never started doing this, most of “our” children could neither read, write nor do mathematics. Many would be working at home, at a rug factory, at a construction site or would perhaps be begging on the streets. The situation in Nepal is unfortunately still like this – many children cannot go to school because it usually costs money. This is why 19% of all men and 44% of all women are illiterate.

We need a schoolroom!

After several weeks of teaching the children in the open air, sitting on a plastic sheet, they decided to found a “real” school. In the beginning only two small rooms could be rented, but one year later – thanks to donations from Switzerland – we could rent an old rug factory.

The schoolrooms must be moved

In the autumn of 2007, we had the opportunity to buy land. Construction of a school building has been in progress since the summer of 2009. In the meantime more than 140 children are studying at the Sunshine School. Over lunch they are served a warm meal as well.
Now Andrea Werder lives again in Switzerland. However, the school continues to be visited once a year by a member of our team.