Phugmoche-Nepal e. V.

About us

Phugmoche-Nepal e.V. is a non-profit association founded in 2004 to support Phugmoche School. The sister organization Phugmoche-Nepal NGO in Nepal was added in 2010. The German association finances the school by donations through the NGO in Nepal. Association and NGO communicate regularly.

What we do
Phugmoche is a boarding school for children living in the Nepalese Himalaya. It has been existing since 1992 and is maintained by the Phugmoche-Nepal Association. It lodges and feeds 70 children. About 35 day scholars from the neighbouring settlements attend our school. Together with the boarders they receive a snack at lunch time. Altogether there are around 105 children who go to school in Phugmoche. Besides teaching the subjects of the Nepalese curriculum, Phugmoche School also preserves the Sherpa tradition based on Buddhist Religion which the ancestors of the Sherpa once brought from eastern Tibet. This includes that the children learn to speak and write their mother tongue, the Sherpa language. The National Language in the multi-ethnic state of Nepal is Nepali which is related to northern Indian Hindi. We give girls a chance: Half of the students we teach in our regular classes are girls. They proved to be especially successful in their professional careers. Our healthcare has saved some of our children's lives. We take sick children into medical treatment and also pay for expensive medical costs.
Since 1998 the German Technical Developement Aid (gtz) and the Danish Development Agency (Danida) had helped us to plan building a small scale hydro power plant (25 KW), to supply the school and our neighbours with renewable and ecological energy. The Micro Hydro Power Station was inaugurated in April 2005. Now we mainly cook by electricity, thus saving the natural woodland on the surrounding slopes. Electric radiators are used to heat our buildings.Close to our school, a paper manufacturing workshop has taken up its production using machines which are run by our electricity.
We grow vegetable for ourselves to cope with ever rising food prices in Nepal, and to reach a high degree of self-sustainability. Food that we are not able to grow is bought locally, hereby reducing transportation costs, and closing regional economic cycles.
In 2008 the association began planning the construction of a guest house to independently finance the Running Costs of the school in Phugmoche. In 2010, the Phugmoche-Nepal Association acquired a plot of land in the north of Kathmandu, in the Tamang settlement of Mulkharka in Shiva Puri National Park. It was registered in the name of the newly formed NGO Phugmoche-Nepal. We received the first guests in September 2016. By now the house has largely established itself. The purpose of the guest house is to help financing the school. Nevertheless, we try to keep the interests of the local population of Mulkharka in mind. In 2019, for example, we offered language classes in English in our house, which were enthusiastically accepted, particularly the by women. The cooking afternoons in our kitchen were popular as well.

Anneliese Dietrich is the Chairperson of Phugmoche-Nepal e.V. In 2009 she was awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz (Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany) for her activities in Nepal .

Based on our experience, we can offer a discussion in order to analyse a given problem and help finding a solution. We may help establishing new contacts in different fields of our work.