In 2022,  partly driven by the experience of the Covid lockdown of the previous years, we decided to spend three months living in a remote village in the mountains, home to 10 families and 6 tiny churches. A lot of the former homes were derelict as a result of  decades of migration to the big industrial centres of Milan and Turin. The result is large tracts of mostly mountain areas slowing returning to  nature. We felt very welcome in this small community. The local Mayoress started posting community notices inSEE DETAILS

Dharmanagar is a village and Village Development Committee in Bara District in the Narayani Zone of south-eastern Nepal. At the time of the 1991 Nepal census it had a population of 2,934 persons living in 478 individual households. Its about 160km south of Kathmandu and  right on the border between Nepal and India. The village is a mainly rural village with people generating income from agriculture. Our connection with this village is Action Aid and its child sponsor program. The child were are sponsoring, Sujit live here with his familySEE DETAILS

My wife and I have been sponsoring children via the Action Aid charity for over 30 years.  Our current sponsored child lives in the village of Dharamanger on the Nepal-India border. This is an area of Nepal that has suffered the ravages of war over the centuries and is economically extremely deprived up to this day. We planned our holiday this year to include a visit to our sponsored child. Our plan was to stay with the family in the village and that’s exactly what we did! Over the courseSEE DETAILS

Kathmandu was our first destination this year and  given that we intended to travel last year, we were concerned about how much damage had been done to the city From what we’ve seen, typically, the newer part of the city is relatively intact, however, the older parts of the city have significant damage – in particular, the main Darbar Square has been devastated.

We visited Nepal this year and the highlight of the visit was a side trip  to an Action Aid project in Dharamanger, about 160km south of  Kathmandu. The village is where our sponsored child lives and it was something that we had planned  with Action Aid Ireland well in advance. It was an amazing, humbling experience and we were treated like royalty. This is a collection of images from the village and the journey down.  It was an amazing experience and we met some extraordinary people. I hope to comeSEE DETAILS