November 3, 2023 Earthquake

Partnering with BlinkNow and HAPSA Nepal, D2N's initial efforts after the earthquake in Northwestern Nepal supplied two villages in the Jajarkot District with food, cooking support, blankets, temporary shelters clothing and emergency medical kits. Our trucks ferried these supplies while our ambulance took the injured as well as pregnant moms, children and the elderly in distress and orphaned children to Surkhet to be taken care of.

Once these communities had adequate supplies and temporary shelter, they requested assistance rebuilding infrastructure, specifically schools (over 800 schools were damaged, 200 were completely destroyed.)

In December 2024 D2N’s newest associate, Build up Nepal, started work on the first school to be rebuilt - Jana Bikash Basic School - located in Thuli Barkhu. The school serves 80 low-income students, ages 4-10, from 70 families in three communities. The students are currently housed in a temporary learning center constructed by UNICEF.

The school will include five classrooms, one office, and a separate building housing three toilets. Build up Nepal uses Compressed Stabilized Earth Blocks (CSEB) interlocking bricks, a technology that is internationally recognized as both earthquake-resistant and ecofriendly.

As with all D2N projects in Nepal, the local communities are significantly vested and provide some of the resource transport, labor, and supplies. We also work with a School Management Committee to ensure that the local community prioritizes and is invested in this project so it ultimately can oversee the operations of the school once construction is completed.

D2N has done this before. After the 2015 earthquake we rebuilt 12 earthquake-safe schools in Khotang as well as two health posts and two birthing centers.