Kumari Project

• Your Father has Fallen

  The news pommeled Jagat; “Your father has fallen.”

  Jagat Lama was working as a porter in Nepal and had a long way to go to reach his father in his village of Kumari. His father had fallen while working in the hills around the small village. The nearest medical care required a nine hour walk. However, when Jagat and his brother considered carrying their father on their shoulders they knew the trip would take much longer.

  Time had run out for Jagat’s father. He turned to his son and said “Jagat, you be a good man and try to help the remote people get medical treatment. Let them not die like me.” Jagat wept as he held his father in his arms. If only there had been medical care available.

  Against incredible odds, Jagat held firm to his father’s dying wish. For years, Jagat dreamed and worked towards building a hospital in the village of Kumari.

  Help Tell the Story

  Inspired by the vision and passion of Jagat and a community of individuals that have empowered him, MLI shot a film, On the Verge, expressing the need for health care in Nepal and telling the story of  the Island Peak Expedition. The expedition  traveled with Jagat and his trekking company, Independent Trekking Guides Cooperative to Kumari and the Everest Circuit. In 2011 MLI lead a team back to Kumari where they we began work on bathroom facilities for a clinic. The team the went to Annapurna Base Camp and attempted Tent Peak.

  Jagat donates up to fifty percent of the money raised through his trekking company to this project but it is not enough. Health and Ed for Nepal (HEN) a non-profit organization, has  also been started to support the Kumari project. HEN and MLI believe that we can make a difference so that people can live who would otherwise die like Jagat’s father.

  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  

  The Kumari Project

  Kumari is a region west of Katmandu. It is composed of steep hills reaching to about 6,000 feet. The people survive off of the food that they grow. In this community where germ theory is still unheard of, there are many medical issues yet to be understood and addressed.

  There is an estimated 75% lung disease rate attributed to the lack of chimneys in houses where all of the cooking occurs. There are also high rates of prolapsed uterus, birth complications, ghiardia and infections.
  Education is the key to changing the short life expectancy rate and the numerous preventable diseases that come from contaminated water sources and poor waste management.

  During the past five years, Jagat Lama and HEN have developed a water system from a spring two kilometers above the clinic site. The first building his team built was a women’s skill center,  where women learn how to sew (with machines), manage money and other ways to provide for their families. Jagat has also just completed the second school for the region. Currently, he is working to complete the much needed health clinic.

  In this project, we are here to support Jagat and his work. Having a strong western education and a board of international supporters, Jagat has make dramatic improvements in the life expectancy of this community

  To get to Kumari, you must travel by off-road vehicles for about six hours. This journey will take you through rice paddies, potato fields and great rhododendron forests.

  Help us support Kumari!

  

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