Making a difference in Nepal
Reporter: Jonathan Wright

Thursday, 1 July 2004

http://www.abc.net.au/goulburnmurray/stories/s1144401.htm

Nicky Holt

A year ago Albury Tax Office executive Nicky Holt took a trip on
a "wing and a prayer" to make a difference in Nepal.

For the last 12 months she has been working for a small Non-
Government organisation in Kathmandu helping to rehabilitate drug
addicted street children.

She's back home for a short stay before returning to Nepal this
weekend.

Before returning, Nicky spoke to Jonathan Wright about why she left
a comfortable life in Albury "I think lack of job satisfaction. I
really felt the need to do something that was worthwhile..."

"I had been to Nepal a couple of times before working as a volunteer
and had always thought it would be wonderful to have a real skill
like a doctor or a nurse, or even an electrician or a plumber,
someone who could go over there and work for the people and do
something practical. On the last visit I had to Nepal I had spoke to
a guy from the UN who said we really need people who have project
management skills and who can deal with bureaucracy and red tape,
and I thought well I am an expert at that.. so yes I did go over on
a wing and prayer, I didn't have any jobs lined up and was lucky
enough to have been invited to a meeting when they were setting up
the rehab centre for the street boys.. So it really was a bit of
luck, a friend tells me I have good karma for Nepal.."

"There are two many street children in Kathmandu, I was really
surprised to see how many there were and at such young ages. Some of
the children are mostly abandoned or their parents have died and
they have no where else to go. They are on the street from as young
as seven years old, and there is a lot of children that become
involved in drugs just because it is a way of being with friends and
having companionship.. So drugs became a really big problem and
injecting drugs started to become quite a big problem and then there
were children who were HIV positive and it just became a real issue
of a lot of young children around the age of 11,12,13 who were
injecting drugs.. when I say injecting drugs, it is low grade
heroin; pretty hard stuff.. and they are HIV positive and really no
chance or hope of life.. It is unfortunately easy to get.."

The program Nicky is involved with .."conducts outreach on the
street with the children and we basically go through a short period
of motivation trial to see if they really want to give up drugs, you
can't force anybody to give up drugs. So the children are told about
the program and see if they really want to be involved and they have
to turn up to different places at different times to show that they
are really motivated.. Then they come in and it is a live in project
so they have to agree to live in the centre for three months as a
minimum and during that period of time they are given counselling
and rehabilitation. They are actually given acupuncture therapy to
help them withdraw from the drugs physically and counselling to
withdraw from the drugs mentally ... A lot of kids have issues who
have suffered abuse at the hands of many adults and then we go to
the vocational side o things looking for apprenticeships for them
because a lot of them have never gone beyond class one or class two
so they can't write their names, they can barely speak Nepali
properly. They can't read they will never be able to compete in the
job market with people who have graduated with Masters and Bachelor
degrees.. so the best we can do is find an apprenticeship or
something like that for them.."