Our story begins over twenty years ago in the Annapurna mountains when trek leader Mahesh Pakhrin met Dorothy O’Brien. The year was 2003.
During this journey a friendship grew and Mahesh told Dorothy (Dot) about his native village of Mirge, a rural village located in Baiteshwor-3 Dolakha, Nepal.
Mahesh explained to Dot his desire for social work and his strong aspirations to make a positive change in the community. This idea stayed with Dot.
Communication continued and in 2004 Mahesh flew to Dot and husband Professor Chris O’Briens’ home in Nottingham, England to raise awareness about the conditions in his village. Chris would convey this message to their fellow members of the Nottingham Rotary Club. These conditions included having no water supply, no electricity, no medicine, little health care and an inadequate schooling system. At that time the average student would walk four hours each day to attend school. Despite being just under 170 km from Kathmandu the journey to Mirge would take up to 8 hours by car due to deteriorated and in many cases, no roads. During his time in the UK, Mahesh received tragic news that two women in his village had died while giving birth. This was preventable and occurred due to a lack of adequate facilities. Upon hearing this, Dot and Chris took immediate action and generously donated over two thousand dollars to build the very first health post in Mirge, 2005. Mahesh’s wife Supari Tamang would later assume the government role of responsibility for local maternity and childcare at the health post.
That same year Dot and Chris visited Mirge for the first time, and would return every year since.
With charitable donations from Dot and Chris, the Wollaton Park Rotary Club, the Rotary Club of Patan, the Rotary International Foundation and the Mary Robertson Trust the village was able to improve its water supply and sanitation.
Electricity was then brought to the village by the government of Nepal.
In 2008, Laligurash Bright Future English Boarding School was established by Mahesh Pakhrin. The original school was made of bamboo, clay and plaster. The school was funded by Mahesh’s trekking savings, Supari’s salary and personal contributions made by Dot and Chris.
Dot and Chris would then visit the school for the first time on their next annual trip. Seeing this exciting advancement sparked further enthusiasm in the couple, and they again donated generously to progress the structure of the school to a modern day facility.
Then in 2015, tragedy struck. The Gorkha Earthquake destroyed the school, village and countless lives. This regressed much of the progress made and called for the development of an entirely new facility.
Dot and Chris, the Rotary clubs of Wollaton Park, Patan and Altadena in the USA with additional overseas grants facilitated this construction and the school was rebuilt once again, with the water supply being returned to the village.
Today Laligurash Bright Future English Boarding School stands strong with over two hundred daily students. With high aspirations for the future, we are confident this is only the beginning of our story!