Maya Universe AcademyNetherlands

How Maya is dealing with covid-19

In Nepal are schools are closed due to Covid-19. Bas de Nijs tells us how it is going with Maya these days.


Maya Education
Maya's schools have been closed for the last four months, but thanks to a fundraising campaign by Maya Netherlands that found support from a large number of international Mayans, we were able to provide our staff with an extra month's salary at the start of the lockdown.
We started doing online classes within a month after schools closed, and have seen a lot of Nepali schools trying to follow our lead. Online classes in Nepal are challenging because of a lack of devices, electricity and reception, but our students from Udayapur, a district in East Nepal, have gathered in the district's capital Gaighat to attend our online classes. Under Maya's supervision, around twenty of our 8th, 9th and 10th graders are renting and managing a space with WIFI where they can study together. This space is now known as The Mayan House.

Maya Home
When lockdown started in March, 74 of 88 Maya Home students left to stay with a family member and sit out the storm. With the monthly donations coming in from the Netherlands and Germany, we've been able to provide full care for the remaining 14 children, manage online classes and pay previous bills at food stores, stationery shops and pharmacies. I hope you understand what your contribution means to Maya and its students, without you this wouldn't be possible.
Now we face the next challenge, as schools are scheduled to open next month, we'll call all our students back, but only under a third of Maya Home's costs is covered by sponsors. In the past, we have been able to settle this deficit with income from Maya's enterprises, but due to the measures surrounding the corona virus, they're currently inactive. We aim to build upon the existing foundation of stronghearted Mayans like yourself to get through this global crisis and make sure we can give each of our children a healthy life and good education.

Nepal
The country has suffered the most intense monsoon rains in decades, resulting in over one hundred deaths due to landslides and floods. Over the last few weeks, the never ending showers have become a more feared killer than the coronavirus. Our village in the hills of Tanahun wasn't spared. Trees fell over, roads were damaged, electricity poles were unearthed and fields flooded. If it wasn't for the solar power installed in 2016, our students would've missed out on online classes for more than a week.
But it wasn't the loss of crops and transportation that dented our morale. In Odare, a small village half an hour on foot from Maya's main school, the mass-movement of mud and water collided with houses. As people were evacuating and redirecting water flows, the father of one of our former students got caught in a landslide. They found his body after two days of digging. It was inspiring to see so many people from the surrounding villages, including our students, joining hands to try and mitigate this force of nature, but the realization that this young family has to grow up without a father was omnipresent.