My name is Martin Aart de Jong and I am from the Netherlands. I first visited Nepal in 1995 doing voluntary work at project in Sundarijal and returned many times as a volunteer to serve the same project in Helambu and Lamjung. I also worked as a tour guide for visitors from my country. I always tried to contribute to the education and well-being of local citizens and became convinced it is small projects that can make a huge impact as they do not demand much support from outside while having a relatively large impact on a community.
Sun Welcome restaurant is a small restaurant located at the northern end of the Lakeside of Pokhara, Nepal. It is run by an elderly couple, Khrishna and Lakshmi. They are in their eighties and though Khrishna is a hard working man it is getting hard for them to run the restaurant. As they are renting the place thre is a huge monthly burden. Besides that Lakshmi's health is detoriorating. Therefore we want to build them a place of their own in the vicinity of the current location, at the premises of the Passion Nepal Eco Lodge.
This place is further removed from the road in a garden area. The base is already there and the plan is to build a small round building using recycled materials such as beer bottle bricks. Momo Bhattacharjee from GreenAmmo who is experienced in the field of recycled materials will assist in this project and Deepak Gurung of Passion Nepal Eco Lodge kindly supports the whole process. It will also be beneficial to the staff of the lodge who can learn a lot from Khrishna and Lakshmi's experience. In previous years the couple was running a hotel themselves and Khrishna travelled the world to cook in restaurants, notably in London, UK.
Your contribution not only makes me feel happy to provide Khrishna and Lakshmi their own restaurant and a bit of calm and safety, it also is meant to demonstrate you can do a lot using materials which otherwise woudl have been discarded or recycled at a plant in faraway Kathmandu.