Background

The Ashah Orphanage Home was founded in 1999 by Assad Shah as an undergraduate student at Georgetown University towards supporting homeless women and children in the Kathmandu area (with Ashah meaning "hope" in Nepalese). The shelter was established as follows:

"I was in the process of donating used clothing to the Kathmandu prison during the winter of 1999 whilst on Christmas break when it came to my attention that there were 5 children incarcerated in the facility at the time. Having chatted to the warden, it turned out that they were only there due to homelessness, for the sake of food and shelter. After obtaining the agreement of the warden and the children's parents (some of whom were imprisoned at the time for fairly arbitrary crimes such as food theft), we simply rented an apartment and threw mattresses and blankets on the floor, and had the children removed from incarceration. This is how the orphanage was started."

Years later, the organisation is a fully registered non-government organisation and presently shelters 20 children altogether. These children will similarly come from disadvantaged situations such as being orphaned during the recent civil disruption in the country, out of poverty, and so on. Support for the shelter is done through the support of Assad and a number of donors, namely the Swiss government, USAID, and organisations like yourselves. The shelter has recently expanded to 2 separate facilities (one for boys one for girls) providing all food, clothing, housing, education, and medical expenses for each of the children and 2 caretakers, with a promise to do so through to adulthood. Expenses come to broadly £20,000 GBP per annum however this may range depending on the time of year and unique circumstances. However, every penny from donations is valued and used with utmost care; there are no middlemen in this process.

What are we doing

Our plan is to leave 12 Arthur street after work on the 15th of April and to walk to Brighton. We estimate, courtesy of google maps, that the journey should be around the 52 - 55 mile mark and while raising money for this excellent cause will also give us the opportunity to admire some of Southern England's most famous landmarks including: Elephant and Castle, the A23, the M25, Gatwick Airport and the Haywards Heath Little Chef.

We expect that it will take around 22 hours, cause approximately the same number of blisters per foot but could still arguably be a more pleasant journey than an on-peak First Capital Connect journey between the two points, possibly being quicker as well.

Thanks for your support,

Matt, Henry, and Will