Kailash Home for children, located in Kathmandu, hosts orphan children in need from different remote mountain areas in Nepal and offers them high level education and a place to live. The home is managed by the Himalayan Children’s Foundation (HCF), a Nepali NGO created in 1997 with a board of trustees regulated by the Nepalese law and supervised and financed by a consortium of three foundations:

• Himalayan Youth Foundation US (United States of America).
• Himalayan Youth Foundation UK (United Kingdom).
• Mountaineers for Himalayas Foundation (Andorra and Spain).

HCF was organized in 1977 with the help of Mr. Hubert Secretan and the Greendale Foundation of Guernsey, to formalize its activity and provide it with the necessary structure. The children were initially accommodated in the home of a teacher.

That same year, David Bidwell and Micheline Kramer from Florida, met on a trek in the Mustang region. She offered to cooperate with HCF and, with her help, the home grew in the next four years from 6 to 38 children and was given its name as the Kailash home.

In 2008, as time went by and more and more children where sponsored in the United Kingdom, the need of a charity with an office in Nepal was evident, therefore HYF-UK was founded.

In 2010, the Kailash Home Project started being fully managed by MHF.

MHF offers:

• Locate orphaned, poor or helpless children in the most remote mountain areas of Nepal and to provide them with a quality education in Kathmandu.
• Provide protection and support for the children.
• Provide medical and general support for the children.
• Give the children an education so that they will be self-reliant.
• Give the children instruction in various activities: sports, arts and music.
• One year of community service in their hometowns for those children that complete their educational qualifications.

Nowadays, Kailash Home is in charge of the education and housing of 100 children.

In 2009, Ang Kami Lama became the first graduate of Kailash Home, and started college. This year, following his footsteps, 13 children will graduate and start college.

The children from Kailash Home receive excellent education from the following schools:

• YOUNG HEARTS BOARDING HIGH School.
• MANASANOVAR PRIMARY School.
• NAMGYAL HIGH School.
• TRINITY College.

Each student is maintained by sponsor who undertakes to finance his or her education for a renewable period of six years.

The annual fee is $1,600, an amount that covers the initial transport expenses of the child to Kathmandu, the school enrolment fee, the accommodation during school year and holidays, the school material, and the health care and maintenance for a whole year.

If a sponsorship were to be discontinued for any reason, Mountaineers for Himalayas Foundation undertakes to look for another sponsor and if one cannot be found, the Foundation takes charge of the required funding for the rest of the child’s education.

Depending on when the child starts school, the sponsorship period can be up to fifteen years: pre-school, primary, high school and college. (College is an optional sponsorship; the sponsor can decide whether or not to collaborate with the child).

We have created two different funds for children that lose their sponsorship so as to cover their higher education studies:

• University Fund.
• David Bidwell Fund – for children who don’t have to attend college but want to pursue other studies. (For children who would like to learn a trade).

HCF is the on-site manager of the Kailash Home, assuring a pleasant atmosphere and encouraging personal contact between sponsors and students.

The students and children at Kailash Home are always motivated and encouraged to take part in extra curricular activities, such as dancing, music, swimming, rock climbing, outdoor excursions, and others.

Aside from all this, four part-time tutors are available at the home to help the children with their homework, and two music teachers give them classes in modern music and Nepalese and Tibetan traditional music.