Gathering Pace!

Work at the Steve Sinnott Learning Resource Centre in Tansen has really taken off over the last few weeks. After a frustrating wait to make a secure bank transfer from the UK, we had a flurry of activity signing work agreements with contractors. There was what felt like another wait after that, as contractors did much of the initial work of building furniture, making window frames and whiteboards off-site. But over the last couple of weeks, it has been a flurry of activity at the centre, with everything being installed.

There's no question which of the recent works has got the local children most excited. The new swings, slide and monkey bars are going to be very well even before the centre is open. I just hope we can keep the kids off them long enough to paint!

In the two days that I've been back from Kathmandu since they've been installed, I've barely seen the area free from children, which is of course exactly what we want! Although I am questioning whether I should have given more budget to this to make the area even bigger and better.

We've also taken delivery of a batch of Raspberry Pi computers, which we'll be using to teach computing once the centre is open. As we prefer to support the local economy, I searched long and hard to source these in Nepal, but it proved impossible so in the end, we had to have them imported. This meant a trip to Kathmandu and a pretty torturous couple of days at the cargo customs building. But finally, I got them cleared and they are now in the centre, awaiting the arrival of monitors, keyboards and some connecting cables from a local dealer.

With the work of the actual building now complete and furniture in place, the next step is buying all the library books and teaching resources needed to make the centre a great place to learn, which is what I'll be doing for the next couple of weeks, before getting on to the final stage of making wall displays, setting up classrooms and getting ready to open and teach! Hopefully, by the time of my next post here, we'll have a firm opening date and be planning an opening celebration!