To keep warm, I am sleeping with a down coat on under the blanket and wear a down vest in the day in the office. Can you imagine how cold the earthquake survivors are when they are still living in temporary shelters made out of salvaged material or thin Corrugated Galvanized Iron (CGI) sheets? 

It has been an especially difficult winter for the people of Nepal. A number of elderly people are getting pneumonia and spending time in the hospital.

An additional complicating factor is power outages. Every day, there is a rotating 13-hour power outage throughout Kathmandu as a way of sharing electricity. With this unpredictable supply of electricity, it is next to impossible to use electric heaters to heat a home. 

As one of our staff said: “Power in Kathmandu is a dream. It’s off in the day time, and on when we sleep at night”.  

There is also a nation-wide fuel shortage. A dispute between various parties and the Nepal government has led to a four-month blockade at the Indian border. Fuel cannot come into Nepal. This includes diesel, gasoline and cooking fuel. That means that propane heaters are also out of the question. 

As a result of all of these complications, it has been an especially difficult winter for the people of Nepal. A number of elderly people are getting pneumonia and spending time in the hospital. The recent opening of the border has not yet fully resolved the fuel shortage.  Our driver still waited for 6 hours in a line to get fuel for our car while I was here in February. 

Thank goodness World Renew had already given out 4,629 thick large blankets in Manakamana, Ramechaap and Gaunkharka VDCs. I was present at some distributions in July and August 2015 where we gave blankets to 2,017 families. Each family received 1-3 per household, depending on the size of their family, to help protect men, women and children against the coming cold. The project included 51 blankets for schools. 

After freezing during my early December trip to Nepal, it became evident to me that we needed to do even more. 

In January, we ordered an additional 2,000 blankets and distributed them in two neighbouring communities. At this distribution, we were only able to provide one blanket to each family in order to reach more households. 

It was pretty cold for our staff who went up and stayed overnight at a local church to distribute the blankets. Our International Relief Managers had brought Canadian hats and scarves, so they all wore them to keep warm. Here they are with a pastor whose church has taken in orphans.  

With some leftovers, we became more targeted in our distributions of the last 124 blankets going to new communities, as there were not enough for every household.  

  • Thirty went to displaced families from the Rasuwa VDC who were living in a camp for internally displaced people in Manakamana. Their land was completely destroyed by landslides and unsafe or impossible to live there any longer. They could not even put up a temporary shelter.

  • Forty went to disabled persons in the Khule VDC, and two to a health post. 

  • The last fifty blankets went to elderly folks or single mothers in Bidur VDC.  

In total 6,633 blankets were provided to 4021 households. I praise God for the partners and churches that supported World Renew in this winterization project, to be able to bring warmth to the people of Nepal.