The story begins in Abu Dhabi, where James was living for several years before moving recently to Jakarta and where he befriended Jack and Neera a young Nepalese couple. Jack was the security guard in James’ street. When Neera became pregnant, they had to move back to Ulleri, their home village in a remote part of Western Nepal. When James visited them, he realised that there was no library, the children had very few if any books, there were no computers and there was no internet access; in short the community was completely isolated from the world and the children’s educational prospects were very limited. He decided to do something about it and, with Jack, conceived a community library and digital access project described on Facebook: Curious Camels Library Project, Nepal.       

https://fr-fr.facebook.com/camelsnepal

The project is being implemented in partnership with Community Action Nepal (CAN), a UK-based charity focused on helping the mountain people of Nepal.

Despite his heavy workload managing an agribusiness project and a coal project in Indonesia, James has found time to visit Ulleri several times to oversee the building of the library and complete Phase 1 of the project, for which he raised some $25,000 from friends, family and business contacts. He is now completing Phase 2, finishing off the building and bringing in equipment and the broadband connection, for which he is raising an additional $30,000 of required funding, of which already has pledges amounting to about $20,000.  

While the UN and the World Bank have been talking about the need to “bridge the digital divide” for years and have produced several tons of reports, real, effective action happens through multiple small projects on the ground, with projects like in Ulleri and, as you can imagine, I am immensely proud of James’ initiative and commitment. Therefore, since I am going to the official opening of the library on May 9, and this involves climbing the 3200 steep steps up from Pokhra to Ulleri and back, I hope you will support this rather crazy endeavour with a donation.

For photos and more details  about how the project has progressed, take a look at James' presentation by following the link below: https://www.dropbox.com/s/nd3x7llctc2msel/Curious%20Camels%20Library%20Project%20v3.pptx

Thank you.

Jan Dauman

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