REBUILDING
REBUILDING
NEPAL
Maryknoll priest empowers local initiatives to respond to devastating earthquake by Lynn F. Monahan photos courtesy of Joseph Thaler, M.M.
W
hen the 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Nepal in April, Govinda Khanal was taking a nap after lunch. At first he thought the shaking would pass quickly, as temblors had in the past. It didn’t, and as bricks started falling off the walls, he and his wife, Geeta, took cover under the bed Fearing their three children, who were all away at college, might lose both parents if she and Govinda stayed in the collapsing
house, Geeta crawled out from under the bed and ran in panic down the stairs and outside. Govinda, a paraplegic since birth, had no choice but to stay behind. In the street below, Geeta faced pandemonium as others fled crumbling buildings or called out in search of loved ones. Fortunately she found a courageous soldier who ran into the house with Geeta and carried Govinda to safety. “The most amazing thing— that still amazes me—is that the house was completely destroyed but not a single brick fell on me,” says Govinda, 58, a high school
Survivors of the April earthquake in Nepal meet with Maryknoll Father Joseph Thaler. Shown (l. to r.) are: Geeta Khanal, Thaler, Ram Maya Tamang and her sister, Govinda Khanal and the brother of Daimaya Tamang, far right. 10
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A 7.8 earthquake in the Asian nation of Nepal in April turned many buildings like the one above into piles of rubble, forcing hundreds of thousands to seek emergency shelter in tents such as those on the facing page, where Govinda Khanal and his family lived after escaping the destruction of their home in the village of Gajuri.
teacher and director of a Maryknoll Society-funded sewing training program for people with disabilities in the village of Gajuri, about 36 miles west of Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu. “As soon as I was rescued, I thought of the students at the sewing program, so I sent my wife immediately to look out for them,” he says of the 15 women and one man in the training program at the time, most of whom cannot walk or do so with difficulty. “All of them had managed to come out by then and they were all in a corn field across the street from the training building. They were all crying, shouting and in shock.” The April earthquake and aftershocks claimed almost 9,000 12
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lives. Fortunately, the lives of the students and alumni of the Sewing and Cutting Training Program for Persons with Disabilities were spared, but many of their homes and villages were wiped out. The training center building was damaged and required repairs before it could reopen. Govinda’s house, however, was not salvageable and will have to be rebuilt. Govinda, Geeta and their children, who immediately came home from college, spent the next few months living in a tent, like hundreds of thousands of Nepalese who were made homeless by the worst earthquake there since the 8.0 magnitude quake of 1934 that struck Nepal and the neighboring Indian state of Bihar, killing almost 11,000.
For Maryknoll Father Joseph Thaler, who has spent most of the last 38 years serving in Nepal, responding to the April 25 earthquake is much more than providing disaster relief: it is a ministry of love to Nepal’s most disadvantaged residents, who in the aftermath of tragedy are made even more vulnerable. In the months since the earthquake, Father Thaler has worked tirelessly, seven days a week, to reach the myriad people he has ministered to in the Himalaya Mountain nation between India and China. He has traveled by truck, bus, motorcycle and on foot to check up on people in programs and locations he has helped over the years, assess their needs and help organize assistance for them. Among those closest to the missioner’s heart are Govinda and the sewing program’s approximately 300 alumni, who be-
fore getting training to be tailors and seamstresses, were generally isolated in their villages with no prospects of becoming productive members of their communities. “Before coming here, many of them were isolated. They’d sit in their homes all day,” says Father Thaler. “Now they come into this program; they have a future. They have a great support system with one another.” Father Thaler heaps credit on Govinda, whom the missioner has known since 1985, and his wife, calling them the inspiration behind the program. “Govinda is by far one of the most inspirational people I know in Nepal,” the priest from Covington, Ky., says of the man who, with Father Thaler’s support, founded the training center 12 years ago. “Even when he was young, he had to crawl over mud and dirt and streams to go to school.”
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A man in front of a temporary shelter near his destroyed house works to clean up and reconstruct his dwelling in the village of Bhimtar, where Maryknoll is helping him and others to rebuild.
Govinda’s life story also serves to motivate the students, who often have low self-esteem because of their physical challenges. “All they’ve got to do is look at Govinda and see everything that he has overcome,” Father Thaler says. “It’s not only teaching people the skills of sewing, but it’s also an empowerment program for everyone who’s involved, because they come together; they learn more about their disabilities; they become more self-confident. “All of them have some disability, and most are disabilities 14
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associated with their legs, with walking,” he says. “They come from the mountain areas of Nepal and a number of them, when they were quite young, fell off trees or cliffs. Others as adults were involved in bus accidents.” In the midst of destruction and with his family still living in a tent, Govinda continued to look out for other people with disabilities. He and his wife were able to contact most of the former students and were relieved to learn none were injured or killed in the quake. Yet many lost their homes and some lost all
their worldly possessions, including the manual sewing machines they received as part of their training to start their own tailoring businesses. “I felt like it was the end of the world,” says Daimaya Tamang, a student who completed the program two years ago. She was on her way home from church in her village of Karang in Dhading District when “suddenly everything started shaking.” She didn’t know what to do but lie down and cry, she says. “I am so happy that I was not at home that day because if I was, I would have died, unable to come out,” she says. “My whole village was completely destroyed
due to a landslide triggered by the earthquake, and there is no one living there now.” Tamang says she was doing well as a seamstress before the quake and was helping to support her family, which includes her parents, two brothers and four younger sisters. All of them escaped injury in the temblor but lost everything else. “We stayed in the village for four nights without food or water,” Tamang says. “We were finally rescued by a helicopter and dropped off in a nearby town. As soon as I was rescued by helicopter, I called Govinda and told him about my situation. He told me to come and get some tin sheets for temporary shelter and a new sewing machine because the one I had was destroyed. I am now staying in a new village and have started sewing. I am so thankful to all those who have helped us.” Another student, Ram Maya Tamang of Goganpani village in Dhading, was finishing her 10 months of study at the training center and was preparing for graduation the following week when the quake happened. “We were practicing singing and composing songs for the upcoming graduation when the earthquake struck,” says Maya Tamang. “We were all so scared that we hid under the bed in the beginning and later ran out in the open space next to our building. I felt so sad and helpless that I couldn’t help my friends who couldn’t walk, since I was having problems myself.” The students
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Villagers in a community destroyed by the April earthquake in Nepal construct a wall of a shelter, above, while on facing page people from the village of Bhimtar unload buidling materials supplied by the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers.
were terrified because the tremors were continuous, she says. Maya Tamang went home the following day after the training center held a hasty impromptu graduation. She discovered her home destroyed, but her family was safe. She called Govinda for help and he told her to come back to get tin sheets to make a roof for a temporary shelter. “I feel blessed at least I have a roof to stay with my family,” she says. Father Thaler says the quake was particularly hard on the training center’s students because many of them come from Dhading and Gorkha districts, which were among the hardest hit areas. 16
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Although the missioner was not in Nepal at the time of the earthquake, the network of local people and non-profit partners with which Maryknoll works immediately went into action. They were already responding to emergency needs when Father Thaler got back a few days later. “By the time I returned, the local NGOs (non-governmental organizations) I work with had already been in contact with the folks in villages and were already responding with good evidencebased information to those most in need, for we had people on the ground in so many of the earthquake places,” he says. Even with such a strong local
network, Father Thaler is personally visiting as many of the affected areas where Maryknoll has projects as he can, assuring accountability for the assistance Maryknoll is providing and, equally important, showing that he and Maryknoll care. “I have had many opportunities to travel to various villages and hear the stories as individuals and families and villagers recount the events of life since April 25,” Father Thaler says. “Often the best I can offer is just to be present and listen.” Listening to the local people and including them in planning
for the future is a guiding principle behind Maryknoll’s work in Nepal, as it is elsewhere. Father Thaler considers it essential in post-earthquake Nepal—not doing for the people, but doing with the people. A top priority for Govinda and Father Thaler is reopening the vocational sewing program so that other young people like Daimaya and Ram Maya are self-supporting and self-sustaining, not disabled but enabled. Noor Jahan Banu, a Maryknoll Nepal staff person in Kathmandu, provided reporting for this article.
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NEPAL
Maryknoll priest empowers local initiatives to respond to devastating earthquake by Lynn F. Monahan photos courtesy of Joseph Thaler, M.M.
W
hen the 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Nepal in April, Govinda Khanal was taking a nap after lunch. At first he thought the shaking would pass quickly, as temblors had in the past. It didn’t, and as bricks started falling off the walls, he and his wife, Geeta, took cover under the bed Fearing their three children, who were all away at college, might lose both parents if she and Govinda stayed in the collapsing
house, Geeta crawled out from under the bed and ran in panic down the stairs and outside. Govinda, a paraplegic since birth, had no choice but to stay behind. In the street below, Geeta faced pandemonium as others fled crumbling buildings or called out in search of loved ones. Fortunately she found a courageous soldier who ran into the house with Geeta and carried Govinda to safety. “The most amazing thing— that still amazes me—is that the house was completely destroyed but not a single brick fell on me,” says Govinda, 58, a high school
Survivors of the April earthquake in Nepal meet with Maryknoll Father Joseph Thaler. Shown (l. to r.) are: Geeta Khanal, Thaler, Ram Maya Tamang and her sister, Govinda Khanal and the brother of Daimaya Tamang, far right. 10
S E P T E M B E R / O C T O B E R 2 0 1 5 M A RY K N O L L
W W W. M A R Y K N O L L M A G A Z I N E . O R G
11
A 7.8 earthquake in the Asian nation of Nepal in April turned many buildings like the one above into piles of rubble, forcing hundreds of thousands to seek emergency shelter in tents such as those on the facing page, where Govinda Khanal and his family lived after escaping the destruction of their home in the village of Gajuri.
teacher and director of a Maryknoll Society-funded sewing training program for people with disabilities in the village of Gajuri, about 36 miles west of Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu. “As soon as I was rescued, I thought of the students at the sewing program, so I sent my wife immediately to look out for them,” he says of the 15 women and one man in the training program at the time, most of whom cannot walk or do so with difficulty. “All of them had managed to come out by then and they were all in a corn field across the street from the training building. They were all crying, shouting and in shock.” The April earthquake and aftershocks claimed almost 9,000 12
S E P T E M B E R / O C T O B E R 2 0 1 5 M A RY K N O L L
lives. Fortunately, the lives of the students and alumni of the Sewing and Cutting Training Program for Persons with Disabilities were spared, but many of their homes and villages were wiped out. The training center building was damaged and required repairs before it could reopen. Govinda’s house, however, was not salvageable and will have to be rebuilt. Govinda, Geeta and their children, who immediately came home from college, spent the next few months living in a tent, like hundreds of thousands of Nepalese who were made homeless by the worst earthquake there since the 8.0 magnitude quake of 1934 that struck Nepal and the neighboring Indian state of Bihar, killing almost 11,000.
For Maryknoll Father Joseph Thaler, who has spent most of the last 38 years serving in Nepal, responding to the April 25 earthquake is much more than providing disaster relief: it is a ministry of love to Nepal’s most disadvantaged residents, who in the aftermath of tragedy are made even more vulnerable. In the months since the earthquake, Father Thaler has worked tirelessly, seven days a week, to reach the myriad people he has ministered to in the Himalaya Mountain nation between India and China. He has traveled by truck, bus, motorcycle and on foot to check up on people in programs and locations he has helped over the years, assess their needs and help organize assistance for them. Among those closest to the missioner’s heart are Govinda and the sewing program’s approximately 300 alumni, who be-
fore getting training to be tailors and seamstresses, were generally isolated in their villages with no prospects of becoming productive members of their communities. “Before coming here, many of them were isolated. They’d sit in their homes all day,” says Father Thaler. “Now they come into this program; they have a future. They have a great support system with one another.” Father Thaler heaps credit on Govinda, whom the missioner has known since 1985, and his wife, calling them the inspiration behind the program. “Govinda is by far one of the most inspirational people I know in Nepal,” the priest from Covington, Ky., says of the man who, with Father Thaler’s support, founded the training center 12 years ago. “Even when he was young, he had to crawl over mud and dirt and streams to go to school.”
W W W. M A R Y K N O L L M A G A Z I N E . O R G
13
A man in front of a temporary shelter near his destroyed house works to clean up and reconstruct his dwelling in the village of Bhimtar, where Maryknoll is helping him and others to rebuild.
Govinda’s life story also serves to motivate the students, who often have low self-esteem because of their physical challenges. “All they’ve got to do is look at Govinda and see everything that he has overcome,” Father Thaler says. “It’s not only teaching people the skills of sewing, but it’s also an empowerment program for everyone who’s involved, because they come together; they learn more about their disabilities; they become more self-confident. “All of them have some disability, and most are disabilities 14
S E P T E M B E R / O C T O B E R 2 0 1 5 M A RY K N O L L
associated with their legs, with walking,” he says. “They come from the mountain areas of Nepal and a number of them, when they were quite young, fell off trees or cliffs. Others as adults were involved in bus accidents.” In the midst of destruction and with his family still living in a tent, Govinda continued to look out for other people with disabilities. He and his wife were able to contact most of the former students and were relieved to learn none were injured or killed in the quake. Yet many lost their homes and some lost all
their worldly possessions, including the manual sewing machines they received as part of their training to start their own tailoring businesses. “I felt like it was the end of the world,” says Daimaya Tamang, a student who completed the program two years ago. She was on her way home from church in her village of Karang in Dhading District when “suddenly everything started shaking.” She didn’t know what to do but lie down and cry, she says. “I am so happy that I was not at home that day because if I was, I would have died, unable to come out,” she says. “My whole village was completely destroyed
due to a landslide triggered by the earthquake, and there is no one living there now.” Tamang says she was doing well as a seamstress before the quake and was helping to support her family, which includes her parents, two brothers and four younger sisters. All of them escaped injury in the temblor but lost everything else. “We stayed in the village for four nights without food or water,” Tamang says. “We were finally rescued by a helicopter and dropped off in a nearby town. As soon as I was rescued by helicopter, I called Govinda and told him about my situation. He told me to come and get some tin sheets for temporary shelter and a new sewing machine because the one I had was destroyed. I am now staying in a new village and have started sewing. I am so thankful to all those who have helped us.” Another student, Ram Maya Tamang of Goganpani village in Dhading, was finishing her 10 months of study at the training center and was preparing for graduation the following week when the quake happened. “We were practicing singing and composing songs for the upcoming graduation when the earthquake struck,” says Maya Tamang. “We were all so scared that we hid under the bed in the beginning and later ran out in the open space next to our building. I felt so sad and helpless that I couldn’t help my friends who couldn’t walk, since I was having problems myself.” The students
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15
Villagers in a community destroyed by the April earthquake in Nepal construct a wall of a shelter, above, while on facing page people from the village of Bhimtar unload buidling materials supplied by the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers.
were terrified because the tremors were continuous, she says. Maya Tamang went home the following day after the training center held a hasty impromptu graduation. She discovered her home destroyed, but her family was safe. She called Govinda for help and he told her to come back to get tin sheets to make a roof for a temporary shelter. “I feel blessed at least I have a roof to stay with my family,” she says. Father Thaler says the quake was particularly hard on the training center’s students because many of them come from Dhading and Gorkha districts, which were among the hardest hit areas. 16
S E P T E M B E R / O C T O B E R 2 0 1 5 M A RY K N O L L
Although the missioner was not in Nepal at the time of the earthquake, the network of local people and non-profit partners with which Maryknoll works immediately went into action. They were already responding to emergency needs when Father Thaler got back a few days later. “By the time I returned, the local NGOs (non-governmental organizations) I work with had already been in contact with the folks in villages and were already responding with good evidencebased information to those most in need, for we had people on the ground in so many of the earthquake places,” he says. Even with such a strong local
network, Father Thaler is personally visiting as many of the affected areas where Maryknoll has projects as he can, assuring accountability for the assistance Maryknoll is providing and, equally important, showing that he and Maryknoll care. “I have had many opportunities to travel to various villages and hear the stories as individuals and families and villagers recount the events of life since April 25,” Father Thaler says. “Often the best I can offer is just to be present and listen.” Listening to the local people and including them in planning
for the future is a guiding principle behind Maryknoll’s work in Nepal, as it is elsewhere. Father Thaler considers it essential in post-earthquake Nepal—not doing for the people, but doing with the people. A top priority for Govinda and Father Thaler is reopening the vocational sewing program so that other young people like Daimaya and Ram Maya are self-supporting and self-sustaining, not disabled but enabled. Noor Jahan Banu, a Maryknoll Nepal staff person in Kathmandu, provided reporting for this article.
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