

Nepal Community Development Project
The Rotary Club of Orange Daybreak is pleased and proud to be working on this community development project in Nepal with the Swoyambhu Rotary Club in Nepal (District 3292), along with Rotary Clubs in the Central West of NSW (District 9700), and with local businesses and corporate organisations. The Australia-Nepal Mental Health Network web site can be found here.
If you would like to donate directly to the Mental Health Training and Support, Nepal Friendship Project, Kathmandu & Maidi Area, Dhading District, then you can do so here. Your donation will go to RAWCS (Rotary Australia World Community Service) to be distributed in Nepal by Hike Himalaya Adventure (when donating add a note that indicates how you would like your donation spent).

Chhahari Nepal is a street-front service for people with serious mental illness. The photo shows Robyn Murray from RCOD discussing the issues with staff from Chhahari in April 2015.

The primary health workers in Maidi receiving training in Mental Health First Aid in November 2014

Robyn plans to return to Nepal after experiencing the earthquake

Chhahari Nepal is a street-front service for people with serious mental illness. The photo shows Robyn Murray from RCOD discussing the issues with staff from Chhahari in April 2015.
Nepal Mental Health Project - Rebuilding Hope
by Robyn Murray, Dr Nick Burns, and team, May 2022
Orange Daybreak is the sponsor club for this project under RAWCS. It began in 2012 after we visited some mental health services in Kathmandu when Mary Brell led the initial Rotary Daybreak team.
With colleagues such as Prabhat Kiran Pradhan (PK) in Nepal, the project is led in Australia by Robyn Murray and Dr Nick Burns, senior psychiatrist, Sydney/Orange, with a team of skilled clinicians - Dr Scott Hedley, psychiatrist, Orange, Peter Warren, psychologist, Orange, Lynette Bullen, drug and alcohol counsellor, Nanette Fogarty, psychogeriatric nurse, Orange, and Naidene Jones, nurse practitioner, Sydney. With COVID of course we have not visited Nepal since 2019. We plan to go in November 2023 and are looking at a trek also to the remote Mustang area of the country.
We have still kept up our support for our Nepali services during the last year.
Led by Scott and Naidene, the team have been working with Chhahari, a street-front service for people who are homeless and experiencing schizophrenia, with supervision via Skype. Funding is also provided by Peter Warren and his wife Kate Baxter from Orange for medications. And this year through donations we funded Chhahari $14,000 to be able to ‘keep afloat’ and to pay staff. We completed an MOU with their Board. They report back that they have been able to support 130 clients (Male:76 and Female: 54), either through the provision of medical treatment costs, home and ‘street’ visits, counseling, access to government social funds, and daycare at their Welcome Centre. They note “...home visits allow the fieldworkers to build a one-on-one relationship with the clients and carers, and experience their daily challenges and struggles first hand. Clients and carers often expressed how special and important these visits made them feel, and that Chhahari staff are very caring.”
T.U.T.H. is the key university teaching hospital in Kathmandu. The psychology and psychiatry department has been funded through Rotary Daybreak in past years for refurbishment of counselling and training rooms. We were able to fund an additional $1,500 this year to further assist them. They have been hit hard with COVID but are starting to think ahead and Peter Warren and the team will do joint on-line training workshops with them later this year.
Rotary Club of Orange Daybreak
(RCOD) Orange NSW Australia
