Our story
How did Meg & Michael become connected to Nepal?
Our work in Nepal came about because of my (Meg's) connection with a non-profit Students Shoulder-to-Shoulder, (Students Shoulder-to-Shoulder provides high school students with the opportunity to live and serve “shoulder-to-shoulder” with expert non-profit leaders and their communities, working directly on projects to make a long-lasting impact.) I first became involved with SStS in 2012 when I co-led my first course to Nepal. That month in Nepal was the beginning of an eight year partnership with both Shoulder-to-Shoulder and the non-profit partners in Nepal, Karma and Sonam Sherpa of The Small World. Since then, I have led three other courses to Nepal, two to Cambodia, and one to Detroit
Michael and Meg enjoying a dance party in Salleri in March 2015.
Where did the vision come from?
Our further involvement with The Small World came about in the Spring of 2015. That March, my husband Michael and I decided to spend our spring break in Nepal where Michael could meet the leaders and staff of The Small World, people who had become dear friends to me in my time leading trips. On the second day of our ten day trek, we stopped at a tea house for lunch. While we were eating, we met a young couple who was on their way to the district hospital in Phaplu - they had been hiking for six days with their sick child, and they had another day and a half to go to make it to the hospital. After meeting that family and hearing about their experiences, my husband turned to me and said, “Meg, our church does medical work in Honduras every year - we can do medical work here. We can bring a medical clinic to the people of Nepal.”
Less than a month later, Nepal was hit by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake, followed by a series of aftershocks and a second earthquake, that left nearly 9,000 people dead, over 20,000 people injured, and over 600,000 buildings, schools, homes, and historic sites in and around Kathmandu destroyed. The day after the initial earthquake, our friends from The Small World began posting updates on social media about how they were actively helping in the disaster relief efforts by handing out rice, lentils, bottled water, and tarps for shelters. It was in the aftermath of those earthquakes that Michael and I felt compelled to do something more active in the work of The Small World.
A core value of ours is living a life of purpose, the idea that we have a responsibility to bring goodness to the world around us. Because of our friendships with those in Nepal, we were uniquely positioned to do something tangible and sustainable to help. We felt it was our responsibility to connect the resources we have access to with our friends in Nepal -who are on the ground already working to provide development to rural communities. And so, about a month after the disaster, we sent an email to Karma and Sonam about the idea of running a medical clinic in partnership with them in the remote Solukhumbu district. That email was the beginning of an incredibly inspiring and humbling journey these last four years as we have partnered with The Small World, our church, and several other medically focused nonprofits to provide medical care and health education to remote villages that very few NGOs work in because of how difficult it is to get there (travel options include a 40+ hour jeep ride, or a 45 minute flight and 5 day trek, or a 45 minute helicopter ride.).
Tea house where we met the young couple who had been walking for six days with their sick child.
So where are we now, five years after the 2015 earthquake?
We have led two trips with about 20 team members from the United States and 40 from Nepal who collaborate to run the program while in-country, which include:
- high level diagnostic screenings (cataract, pulmonary, digestive, and hearing). As a result of our clinic in October of 2018, we were able to get the 40 cataract patients to a free cataract clinic. We send the other identified patients to experts in Kathmandu with all expenses paid.
- child well checks for area school children to gather baseline health information about the community that we will track over time to see the long term impact of our work.
- Health and hygiene education for the children.
- Leadership training for village leaders, teachers, and student leaders.
An important element to us is sustainability and ensuring that we are doing work that lasts beyond when we are there in person. We have partnered with several other medically focused NGOs to establish medical facilities that fall under the purview of the Nepal Ministry of Health, which means once the facility is built, the government manages the salaries, equipment, supplies and pharmaceuticals. To date, we have funded two birthing centers (each of which will save the lives of 300 babies annually), a surgical center, and are currently building a hospital in an area that will provide healthcare to over 100,000 people. The most recent next step we have taken is to establish a separate nonprofit, Expeditions of Hope, which will enable us to expand our fundraising efforts as well as allow us to work more freely with other organizations. We are at the beginning of the next chapter of our journey, and we are excited to see what unfolds as we explore all that Expeditions of Hope can do.
Meg and Michael in the village of Basa after a wonderful welcome ceremony.