Tsarang Ani School Library
A small nunnery in Tsarang, the second largest community in the restricted area of upper Mustang, has recently been built through donations and the hard work of the villagers of Tsarang. With 28 students, from 8 years to 18 years old, this is the first girls-only school that mirrors the well-attended monastic school associated with Tsarang's ancient monastery. Students come from villages near and far to partake in what the Ani school has to offer, with its three teachers, multiple languages (English, Tibetan, and Nepali), and a rigorous curriculum that includes mathematics and grammar. We want to augment the school's resources by turning one of their large upstairs rooms into a children's library, like the Khumjung School library, to be used by the girls as they grow up.

Tsarang and Lo Manthang Community Libraries
As a compliment to the Ani School library, we will be donating books to two new community libraries that are being built by the people of Tsarang, Lo Manthang, and READ. We plan to bring children's books, reference books, books about womenÕs health and adult education. The library is meant to be a resource for the whole community. In collaboration with READ, we hope to set up a volunteer system that will bring trekkers face-to-face with children interested in books. The trekkers will be encouraged to come to the libraries during special designated village "story hours", in which they can read to children. .and also help with library related maintenance

Budgets for Libraries
From our experience, the largest single cost is incurred in shipping books from the U.S. to Kathmandu, then paying for porterage of loads, by yak, horse and humans to their remote destinations. And, transport is where the donations we receive can most quickly be put to use. Next, buying wood to build shelves is extremely costly in the high Himalaya. Carpenters are not expensive, but the supplies they use (considering transport, again) cost the equivalent of home building supplies in the U.S. Also, we try to provide a salary for a librarian or two to keep each library open to the communities during school hours -- and at times convenient to the communities. This requires paying for someone's time and training them in library skills. In summary, each library has its own needs and special costs, but we've found that a start-up cost for a single childrens library (including shipping books) comes to approximately $6,000 U.S. dollars.

Volunteering
We are looking for volunteers in Nepal and in the States who are interested in working with us to conduct book drives, raise funds, set up the libraries and do follow-through work on keeping them sustainable. Each library has its own character and set of challenges, and we try to match volunteers with each community. To learn more, please email us at clarkliesl@mac.com.

Click here to read Liesl Clark's February 2007 Dispatch from Nepal

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