Note from Rosalind Russell CEO of Rstar foundation

“Hi, I am Rosalind Russell, Founder and CEO of R Star Foundation, our focus is “Women Helping Women and children in Nepal”.  We’ve been working in Nepal for 12 years providing 2 pregnant goats to rural, agricultural women in groups of 25, in all casts or social stratification system, 51 goats total including one breeder, we also provide microfinance seed money.  We began with 100 women in 2 villages and now have nearly 17,000 women in 48 villages in the Kavre district of Nepal.  While we started with 208 goats, through breeding and paying it forward, we have over 15,000 goats now.

Once we were involved with the women, we saw there was a much greater need in the villages.  We collaborated with other NGO’s such Lions clubs and the U.N. to provide sewing, knitting, candle and incense making classes and provided the machinery and training in how to use it.

We worked with Rotary clubs in the US and Nepal to build water wells in the villages and provide literacy classes for the women, who were 91% illiterate.  Five years ago we opened the elementary school in Wojethar that we built, with the students testing in the top 10% of the nation, which is beyond outstanding since they are rural students.

We were boots on the ground three days after the first earthquake of 7.9 magnitude in April 2015, bringing in medical supplies, tents, tarps, and food (rice, beans, tea and sugar).  We had mosquito nets made in Nepal for our villages which covered 32,000 people, protecting them from Dengue fever, malaria, irritations and infections.

After the May 2015, 7.6 quake, and with further collaboration we built 20 earthquake resistant, 2 bedroom model homes in Pahari, our poorest village.  The cost to build each is $5,800 each and we have since been approved to build them in any of our villages.  These homes have inside water, a Western toilet, to support the bio-gas for cooking and lighting, a private garden, and a satellite for television as a requirement of the grant to build the homes.

On September 21, 2015 an unofficial embargo prevented all necessary supplies arriving in the land-locked country.  No fuels for transportation or cooking have been available, medical supplies are exhausted closing hospitals, houses have not been able to be re-built because of no supplies, leaving the villagers exposed to oncoming winter weather.

Measurable increased suicides began since the embargo complicated their already beleaguered lives from the quakes, rapes of the village women who are unable to be protected by housing have been rampant, and violent robberies to steal the gold jewelry of the villagers increased.

The embargo will be over in time.  We are ready to bring in food and medical and building supplies, however distributing the food and supplies will be hampered by the high cost of fuel in the region.  We are asking for this grant to assist us in the distribution to the villages through the purchase of fuel.  A grant of $1000 will assure the villagers receive these necessary provisions, saving lives and providing hope to the dismissed and forgotten.” Rosalind Russell

Rabin loading food supplies from LIONS CLUB for single women Namobuddha