This year’s latest news
- from the most winter, ability and leadership camps ever…
- to Johnny’s seeds loving Ladakh…
- to our fabulous volunteers at CanAssist and other partners…
- and projects bringing partners together and reminding us yet again that . . .
strong partnerships . . .
healthy futures
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25 August 2019 Help! Ladakhipedia coders needed!
Ladakhipedia is the Himalayas first student-created, open-sourced encyclopedia of Ladakhi culture, history, geography, people and more!
Our volunteer administrative team needs another coder to work with MediaWiki coding to create templates for the students to use.
If you can help please contact us at:
cynthia@thehelp-incfund.org
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10 August 2019 A wonderful Ladakhipedia video
This Ladakhipedia video was made by the Summer Campers at Hemisshukpachan – and – well – what incredible videographers they are!
Document the treasures of Ladakh while we still can by involving all students in Ladakhipedia!
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29 July 2019 Summer Camp Fun!
Stanba and Spalgon had a wonderful week with students from Hemisshukpachan (with a special thanks out to Sir Sonam Phuntsog for arranging a great Summer Camp!)
The best way to test Ladakhipedia and Winter-Camp-in-a-Box ideas is to have fun together for a week. And I think the Indian Navy will be contacting the students about designing new boats for them!
Boat Builders
Games at Hemisshukpachan
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14 May 2019 Winter-Camp-in-a-Box
The HEALTH Inc and HELP Fund Teams – along with wonderful volunteers from our Leadership Camps – are busy creating the best learning tools for our Winter-Camp-in-a-Box programme.
From the best ideas on developing Traditional Skills, to how to start a Village Kids Nightly Newscast, it’s all there in the box. (Of course there will be village-produced How to Play Hockey videos, too! This is Ladakh!)
It’s all under production and we will be testing prototypes during our Summer Camps in July. We promise updates on a regular basis!
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24 April 2019 Ladakhipedia – her at last!
Finally!
We are almost ready to launch our Ladakhipedia platform!
Students from any participating school in Ladakh (and next winter, in Canada and USA too!) will be able to upload their village-based-research to their unique wiki pages on the Ladakhipedia encyclopedia site.
We’ll be opening the Ladakhipedia web page by 1 May.
Stay tuned for Facebook messages about what it is, how it works and how your village can join in on this wonderful learning tool.
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31 March 2019 what an honour!
Cynthia Hunt, fearless leader who happily admits she’s just a team member, was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award by CanAssist Society New Delhi at the Canadian High Commission in March.
She thought she was attending a work meeting with partner CanAssist. What a surprise! “In recognition to more than 30 years of dedication to education and health programmes in Ladakh…”
Topped off a very happy year and starts a transition to Cynthia making more time for the Global Classroom Initiative and Stanba and Spalgon taking over the Ladakh-based work.
Thank you everyone at CanAssist for so many years of support for the most marginalised in Ladakh.
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13 March 2019 just a reminder
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27 February 2019 Inventory (bit late!)
A little late again this year. But !FINALLY! the inventory is complete and posted.
We had such wonderful help from Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Quebec this year getting our 850 kilos of gear and mobility equipment over to Ladakh. Especially the safety of getting helmets out to 14 different villages in both Blocks, and the joy of supporting the first-ever Himalayan Sledge Hockey Team at PAGIR. Not to mention 2 more villages getting a complete kit-out for over 100 skaters, fantastic Bauer Goalie sticks to 4 groups and the Physio Unit at the District Hospital getting their first Striders!
Thank you to all of you (see the movie from the last post below!) who again collected gear, made sure it reached Ottawa and our friends from the High Commission who made sure it reached India in one piece.
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16 February 2019 Thank you Donors!
Jullay Everyone!
This year we held more Leadership, Winter and Ability Camps than ever. And had another year of fantastic volunteers, incredible gear donors and help from around the year to make all those Camps happy, healthy and chocker-block full of fun learning.
From us at the HELP Fund and HEALTH Inc – and from over 500 kids – thanks for making it happen again this year.
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11 February 2019 Merak’s First Year
You just can’t have a more beautiful rink on this planet. Or classroom location.
It wasn’t our warmest camp ever – Nick helped clear drifts of 2 metres of snow from the rink and the winds shredded my tent and made students huddle in the only solar room in the village.
But it was a camp filled with finding incredibly talented kids who made every day one of amazement. These kids are Ladakh’s future designers and artists!
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2 February 2019 Nyoma to Merak – Nomad Hockey
We were warned that Winter Camp in Nyoma (sponsored by SAVE Nyoma) would be very popular….. Should have beleived them.
So we had 55 kids participating in hockey and inquiry learning, another 75 who participated in competitions and IT learning. And a few extras from the village itself who popped in whenever possible.
We also had the best coaches – graduates of Leadership Camp – who made it all work out perfectly.
Now we’re off to Merak to see if when they say “popular” they mean everyone will show up.
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21 January 2019 Ability Cup runneth over
It’s just fun running projects on a wing and a prayer. I think because when we do that, we get 500% from our partners, our volunteers, the participants and the Youth Mentors who lend a hand.
Being on the rink, in the classroom and in-residence with this year’s Ability Campers was a continual joy.
Thanks PAGIR, thank you Tessa, Abbey, Robin and Nick, thanks Handimachal Team, Stanba, Spalgon. Thanks J&K Police Coaches and thanks CanAssist; and everyone else who made this year’s Ability Camp even better than the perfect one last year.
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8 January 2019 Leadership, Girls’ Style
The Youth Association of Kanji and especially the Women’s Cooperative of that village had this great idea:
Let’s do a Leadership Camp just for Women and Girls. Yes!
It was a challenge. And that’s why it’s so needed. The girls were shy, they didn’t really believe they could play hockey much less coach it. They worried if they went home as “leaders” there might be problems with the boys in the village.
But as we built that community of trust, we started taking risks, helping each other and believing we can do it too. The Kanji-pas were so very right!
And it was a first of many Girls’ Leadership because it was perfect for the need here in Ladakh.
