It has been some time since we returned from our trip to Nepal – unfortunately, I had to come back earlier than the rest of the team. Nevertheless, my journey to Nepal was incredible. It was amazing how a group of 12 bright minds from different corners of the world -5 AITM students plus 7 Aalto students- got together for almost 2 weeks to work on a meaningful project such as social reconstruction of communities after disasters.
The team for the Nepali Project 2019 has been working hard since the first 5 students had their first meeting in November 2018. After a while, these students from Aalto University, Finland received the news of 2 new members that will be complimenting the made in Finland team. By the end of January, the number increased to 12, with the new members from the Asian Institute of Technology and Management, Kathmandu. Today, there are only a few days left for getting together and working for specifics objectives and perhaps, building a common one for all of them, always focusing in the rural village of Dhungentar, Nepal.
There is room and potential to combine our scopes.
Both angles taken by the teams are valid and extremely complimentary. In one hand, the team from the AITM arises at first sight from economical sustainability; while the direction chosen by the team from Aalto University is mostly seeing on the social sustainability sphere.
We started our day with an excursion to the Center of Resilient Development, a non-governmental, non-profit organization. They are focused on research about the sustainable reconstruction technologies in Nepal. But also do trainings and have built their own demo-house for other NGO’s who are having reconstructions projects.
Is it seriously already Friday? It feels like we just arrived here but today is the last day before we must head back to the city …
The morning starts with some preparations for saying good-bye. Even though we don’t have too much special to give, we prepare an oversize thank you card and our obligatory Finnish candies for the ICIMOD guys before they arrive for the day.
Today was our first full day in Dhungentar and it felt like we gained a good overview of the village and ongoing projects.
