Ashu your input is always welcome. Ashu wrote: "Haven't we in Nepal had enough of this sort of "hardware" help in towns and villages? " Answer: At least, Help Nepal (HeNN) found many places where such "hardware" do not exist. 1. Murma Village in Mugu and 2. in Haripurwa Village in Sarlahi. The "sort" you may be referring is not applicable with HeNN. HeNN works with the local organization with 50% of their contribution to bring about sense of belonging of the project. I know HeNN works differently from that sort. Ashu wrote: YEAR TWO or THREE: But visit the same school or health-post in 2 years' time, and you are likely to see "software" problems ruining the hardware, which is that charity-built building. The software problem would be: lack of teachers/nurses/health care providers . . . lack of (commercial) revenue streams for the school or health post to be sustainable .. . low trust among local political factions, negatively affecting the smooth functioning of the school or the health post and so on and on. Answer HeNN is well aware of the problems you cited and the rise and fall of the buildings and software problems. The Mugu Health post erected by HeNN with the youths of Murma Village is running fantastically by local standards with the help of local people and even Govt. We have been able to train health workers and pay them for their services. We still have unsused reserve intended for Mugu Health Post. So this may not be a typical example of that "sort" of projects and help of various sizes are coming from different institutions. Ashu wrote: I would think that returns to education and returns to society would be much. much higher when you invest in the education of smart but economically deserving Tharu student pay for his MBA at, say, Kathmandu University, or for a law degree at, say, the Kathmandu School of Law than helping a child to go to class 10 from class 1. Answer Multi-pronged approaches would have been nice. We have orphaned/displaced children to take care of and we have sharper students needed to be taken care of. Thats the reality. Let HeNN take care of some of the children, now and follow them to higher education. HeNN is not that big organization to deal with all the problems right now. HeNN is just a medium to help solve some very basic problems. HeNN asks for possible help from other people (possibly some of them are reading this) and HeNN thanks those contributers to make things happen. FYI visit www.helpnepal.net to see what can be done with very small amount of money collected.