About NEES
(Nepal England Education Support)
Who are we?
The Nepal England Education Support charity was established after our founder Joanna Luscombe-whyte, visited Vinayak Shksha Niketan School, in the village of Thimi in Nepal and volunteered at the school to help children learn English. Joanna started to sponsor some poor children in the village who could not afford to go to school and when she returned to the UK she persuaded her friends and family to do the same. As the sponsorship grew it became clear that the group needed to form as a charity to support growth of the sponsorship program under a more formal set of guidelines. Together with the original Trustees Joanna founded a charity called Nepal England Education Support to promote the sponsorship. Several of our sponsors and Trustees have visited the school over the years since then to see for themselves the impact that a small amount of money could have on the future of children.
Over the years since then the school has grown into a vibrant place for education and safety for the children of the village, it has established itself as a center for the community and the charity has expanded into other smaller projects to support the village and its close-knit community.
Each sponsor becomes a pen friend to the child they support and receives annual school reports to monitor progress, some of our sponsors have continued to support the children after they leave school, helping them to finance a place at college and later even through medical school and nursing college. The young people who have benefited from this support have gone on to be professional adults, contributing to the future of Nepal and their village, school and family.
Vision
Our vision is to ensure that no child in Thimi is left out of the education system due to poverty, to support the whole community with small projects that help the economy of the village, support the school, and increase literacy amongst the villagers, whatever their age.
The NEES Team
Judith Milne
Treasurer
I first became involved in the charity through my Mother who was a good friend of Joanna, our founder. I started as a Trustee in 2010 and later took over the Treasurer role in 2013. I have sponsored several children over the years, the first couple of children graduated from school and have become a nurse, a teacher and look after family or farms in Nepal. I continue to sponsor children and have enjoyed seeing the school develop from a ramshackle building with a few children into a school with good facilities, bathrooms, classrooms and play areas as well as well qualified teachers and support workers. It is satisfying to know that even though the village is a long way from the UK, we can still make a difference and change peoples lives through education.
Andrew Fraser
Chairman
I first went to Thimi and VSN in 2003 when Joanna was there doing a stint as a volunteer teacher and well before NEES was established. I undertook to sponsor a young boy with ability and ambition and Surendra chose for me Ram, who was 10 at the time. It has been a successful association throughout, he is now qualified as a doctor, working in Intensive care and earlier in 2022 he came to Cornwall to stay with me while in UK taking GMC exams. I have returned to Thimi several times and met his family and I now sponsor 2 other children. I was elected Chairman of NEES at the AGM in 2019 and I liaise between Surendra and the other sponsors.
Lucy Barkhuysen
Trustee
In 2016 I took a gap year where I visited VSN School (which is supported by NEES – Nepal England Education Support) in Thimi, Nepal. I was there for 3 weeks volunteering and teaching English to students aged 9 -14 and stayed with a host family on the roof of the school. Having grown up listening to my Grandfathers stories of school, I always dreamt of visiting and during my trip there I began to sponsor a young girl called Nima through NEES. I hope to return to Thimi and if possible do some optometry work with poor children in the village.