About Round table Party

When “Teresa’s Round Table Party” column was first started, our goal was to share different family experiences, tips on parenting, English learning, social, environmental and cross cultural reflections. We invite Estela Nickerson to pen the next few columns of “Teresa’s Round Table Party” , sharing their family’s tales, anecdotes and reflections of this eight month-long fantastic journey in Asia. We hope that their special experiences will touch your hearts and help all of us ponder our truest aspirations in life and the ways we hope our children to make a difference in this world.

The Nickerson’s have been our family friend for a very long time.  Dennis Nickerson was my husband’s college roommate.  Since graduating college, both men pursuit careers in different industries, form families and kept very close friendship.   Dennis’ bride, Estela is an exceptional woman who is strong minded and very devoted wife and mother.   Estela and I bonded deeply sharing our parenting experiences and views towards education. 

In 2017, Dennis and Estela along with their two children Sophia, age 13, and Max, age 10 forwent the traditional schooling, made an fantastical journey to Asia, taking on learning and education from different corners of Asia.

In Laos

Laos was waiting for us as our last stop in Southeast Asia. We traveled way north, almost reaching the border of China where most of the ethic groups live. There, in the isolated high mountains, they plant dry rice and raised their animals. We were honored to visit their homes and truly explore their culture. The Hmong, the Ka and the Tai live in a subsistence existence planting, hoarding and fishing on the Mekong.

However, what really made us incredulous was Laos' recent history. The "secret war" of Laos absolutely decimated 1/4 of the population and made its fields unarable. To this day, they are covered with "bombies", or unexploded cluster bombs. Max and Sophia observed this inhumane situation and kept asking questions that we didn't have answers to - "Why was the US bombing this peaceful country?"

Facts for Awareness

Let's help clean up the fields from bombies.

From 1964 to 1973, as part of the Secret War operation conducted during the Vietnam War, the US military dropped 260 million cluster bombs – about 2.5 million tons of munitions – on Laos over the course of 580,000 bombing missions. This is equivalent to a planeload of bombs being unloaded every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, for nine years – nearly seven bombs for every man, woman and child living in Laos.

Source: COPE

In Nepal

In our time spent in Southeast Asia, our transformation deepened. We were ready to explore the Himalayas.

First we went to Nepal. It was the poorest country we went to so far, yet we surrendered to its geographical beauty and its devout people.

The Samata School, where we taught, was created by a Nepali man with a vision to bring free English education to the poorest Nepali neighborhoods (Being fluent in English is considered a passport to success). Each of their 30 or so schools throughout Nepal are made of bamboo and take pride in trying to be what its name says - a path to equality for children throughout education.

Meanwhile we taught adolescents between 15 to 17, preparing them to enter the workforce. Sophia and Dennis created a role play for them to practice interviewing for their first "real" jobs. By the end of the week both Max and Sophia had created with the students real and fun skits based on real life scenarios. What an amazing time we had with these extraordinary young people.

Facts for Awareness

Let's help underprivileged children from Samata Schools!

Many such children attend Samata School in the centre of Kathmandu. Because of their domestic or factory labor duties there are usually only around half of the students – 1,500 – in school at any one time.

Lots of Samata's students are orphans or have been separated from their families during political upheaval; for them school is home and their only chance of gaining an education and social skills. Others rely on Samata to provide basic medical care and a meagre lunch, which usually amounts to just a handful of rice.

Founded and run by a young, visionary philanthropist, the present school was built from scratch when it had to be moved two years ago. There are now rudimentary bamboo-and-plaster classrooms, as well as very basic sanitation and kitchen facilities.

Although the school provides a safe and harmonious environment for the children, conditions are dark and cramped and the aim is to improve the site as more money becomes available.

Lessons at the school are conducted in English and concentrate on a thorough learning of the language, which is the most important education a Nepalese child can have. Without it they cannot take public exams or apply for a job in tourism or communications.

Samata School charges a fee of Rs 100 per month for all the grades from nursery to Class 10\. This fee has been in constant since its establishment on 2001\. Samata School has now been expanded into 11 different locations within 8 district.

To be continued…