Ready to deploy: Our year ahead 2023-24
Our teams in Nepal work to the Nepali financial year, which runs from 1 July to 30 June. As we look to the year ahead, our team of over 500 staff will continue working hard to ensure Gurkha veterans and their widows can live with dignity.
The monthly pension we provide will allow thousands of vulnerable Gurkha veterans and widows to buy food and essentials to remain secure in their old age.
We will also continue to venture out to the foothills of Nepal to visit and provide medical care at the homes of our pensioners, and work within local communities to provide wider development aid.
Take a look at our interactive map to see where our projects in Nepal will take place this year.
Delivering a pension to over 3,000 Gurkha veterans and widows
For over 50 years, the Trust has provided Financial Aid to Gurkha veterans who are not eligible for a British Army Pension. We do this through a monthly pension which is calculated using a ‘shopping basket’ of basic goods such as rice, vegetables and firewood. With costs and inflation in Nepal rising, from July 2023 the monthly pension we provide will be 16,000 NPR, equivalent to £103.23, an increase equivalent to 10% from last year. We will also continue to provide other Financial Aid, including Disability Support Grants, Emergency Hardship Grants, and a Home Carer’s Allowance.
Supporting 36 pensioners in our Residential Homes
Our two Residential Homes, Kaski in Pokhara, and Dharan in eastern Nepal, provide round-the-clock care for up to 36 Gurkha veterans and widows who would otherwise struggle to live alone. With no comparable facility in Nepal, they set the standard of care and combine the very best of western medicine with an eastern culture of respect for elders. The Homes will also continue to provide the base, and residential stays if needed, for our Rehabilitation Therapists to support some of our pensioners who need specialist treatment.
Sourcing clean water for Gurkha veterans, widows, and communities in Nepal
Each year we bring clean water to Gurkha veterans and their communities in Nepal, in part financed by funds the Trust receives from the UK Government.
The British Government (via the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) has told us they are now unable to fulfil the agreement to fund clean water in Nepal. As a result, it cannot fully deliver the funds promised to the Trust, which previously took our programme to 2026. Despite this, we plan to provide water to 37 communities in the upcoming year, benefitting 9,735 individuals, including 18 Gurkha veterans and widows. We will also be constructing 101 toilets to our most vulnerable pensioners.
We have prioritised the neediest communities so that the most disadvantaged people and their villages can access water before the funding ends. As part of the scheme, each home receives a tap stand fed from a clean water source and filtered down from new storage tanks.
Building 75 earthquake-resilient homes to protect our pensioners
In 2015, the earthquake that devastated so many lives in Nepal also demonstrated the need to ensure that our Gurkha veterans and widows had homes they could rely upon to protect them should the worst happen again. The Trust rebuilt 1083 homes and repaired an additional 325 in the months that followed, and in 2018 we began our initiative to build further earthquake-resilient homes for the most vulnerable pensioners.
This year we will build a further 75 homes. The homes also now feature an enhanced design which ensures they will continue to be fit for purpose and offer further benefits to our pensioners in their older years. Handrails and ramps are now included for safety and ease of access, and false ceilings are also fitted to offer sound protection from rain on the metal roof. This also helps with heat retention in winter and ceiling fans assist with cooling during the summer. These enhancements will also be retrofitted to the homes we’ve previously built over the next few years, starting from July 2023.
More home visits and Medical Camps
From health checks to vaccines, rehabilitation therapy to mental health support, we will continue to provide a package of healthcare to our Gurkha veterans and widows. Our teams will head out into the field, delivering care at the homes of our pensioners and saving them long, arduous journeys to access the care they need.
For some of our pensioners, hospital treatment will be the only option. We will continue to fund operations and treatment for the most vulnerable. A new Hospital Allowance will provide NPR800 per day to cover unavoidable costs incurred by families when a pensioner is admitted to hospital.
Also planned for 2023-24 are our next four Medical Camps, offering free medical care to the most remote communities. The first of these camps will be in the remote Mustang region, high up in the Himalayas.
Building a brighter future: Our Schools Programme
Our Schools Programme benefits children living in hundreds of remote villages across Nepal. This year we will carry out 15 school extensions, 73 refurbishments, and build two new schools to enhance and improve access to education.
By building, repairing and improving schools in remote regions of Nepal, we help provide improved access to education and a better future for Nepali children. This year we will again construct two new schools, one in Gulmi and one in Chitwan. Additionally, we will extend the teaching facilities at 15 smaller schools. We will also be improving the learning environment of many other schools by providing new classroom furniture, repairing existing classrooms and building new toilet blocks.