School Reconstruction in Gorkha

January 2016 | Kathmandu

After numerous visits to Gorkha and meeting with parents, schools and communities, we have decided to help reconstruct four primary schools in rural parts of the district. Each school will have eight rooms to accommodate classrooms, playroom for pre-school children, laptop room and office. We spent a lot of time researching various building designs and consulted the building codes prepared by the government. Based on suggestions from experts and our own observations from the field, we are narrowing on a single storey design based on a truss system. We will be using durable yet safe materials for walls that also provide better insulation.

We have just completed all the paper work and multiple approvals required from various governmental bodies both in the capital and the district. We will soon be going to the sites with an engineering team to get the measurements before preparing detailed designs for each school. We will be working closely with the School Management Committee during the construction of the buildings, and our engineering team will monitor the process to ensure that the buildings meet the safety specifications.

This is the first time that OLE Nepal has ventured into constructing school buildings. We took up this new challenge after seeing the need for organizations and groups like ours to do what we can to ensure that students are not deprived of education. We were also encouraged by the high priority that rural communities put on their children’s education, and by the tremendous support we received from all over the world.