Appeal: Help our Y4PT Chapter Representative in Nepal

While doing charity work in a remote Nepalese village, a Y4PT Chapter Representative got caught up in the 7.8 magnitude earthquake. Alain FLAUSCH has written a letter asking for your support.

Dear UITP members, friends and supporters of the Y4PT Foundation:

As you are no doubt already aware, Nepal has been hit by a massive earthquake that has affected not only Kathmandu, the capital city, but also a myriad of little villages and small towns across the high-risk territory.

Y4PT has a special relationship with Nepal, since Juju MAHARJAN (juju.maharjan[at]y4pt.org), Head of HeartBeat (https://www.heart-beat.org/) contacted us four years ago to actively start a Y4PT Chapter in Kathmandu (https://www.y4pt.org/chapters/world/nepal/kathmandu/).

Since then, Juju has been very active in his country promoting sustainable mobility issues as advocated by Y4PT, to the point that even the governments and media have been encouraged on numerous occasions to include the public transport issue on their agenda.

But his work is not limited to this: Juju also funded different groups of cyclists and supporters of a healthy way of moving around in Nepal. He also created specific educational programmes relating public transport to formal and informal education: one of which to name just one, is School on Wheels (https://www.facebook.com/SchoolOnWheel).

Juju is an indomitable person, creating every months new campaigns to protect street children, to give them a shelter and education; and his daily actions include him and his group of volunteers bringing education and food to the most deprived people in the streets of Kathmandu and little villages around the capital city.

It was exactly during one of these actions in the remote village of Dhadagaun that they were taken by surprise by the earthquake: after days in which we were worried for their lives, we were able to finally get in touch with Juju.

His attention was completely focused on the people of this village, where 300 houses were destroyed, a number of people died and hundreds were injured.

The group decided to reach Kathmandu and organise a rescue mission: they undertook an 8-hour walk during the aftershocks before reaching the capital city.

He contacted me telling that they needed to collect food, water, medicines, shelter, tents.

Y4PT Foundation and myself (as its Co-Founder and Chairman) have decided to act: in two days we collected approximately 1,000 euros among UITP staff and it was one of the first donations to reach them. They were overwhelmed by this little act of generosity from our side and they continue to thank us.

But the time is passing, the situation is worsening, and we need to help them in the long run: we do not want them to go through epidemic and outbreaks.

This is why Y4PT and UITP are asking for your help in supporting Juju and his philanthropic actions in Nepal, through your direct donation at the following PayPal hyperlink:

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=TLBE7NYHPA23C

We follow daily the arrival and use of this money; it is not going to end into the funds of big organisations and we have already received details and pics on the actions they are undertaking in the area of Dhadagaun, close to Nagarkot, where they were when the quake stroke: https://www.facebook.com/heartbeatnp .

Your gesture to support our Y4PT Chapter Representative in Nepal and his group of active volunteers will make a big difference.

And we will all have the possibility to give messages of solidarity and sympathy to Juju MAHARJAN in Milan during our 61th UITP World Congress and Exhibition in June 2015.

We thank you in advance for your support and do not hesitate in contacting Mrs. Alessandra GORINI (alessandra.gorini[at]y4pt.org) for any questions you may have. She will be pleased to help you.

Follow Y4PT actions in Nepal on Twitter (https://www.twitter.com/y4pt) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/250503794992509/) under hashtag #Y4PT.

Thank you so much in advance.

Sincerely,

Alain FLAUSCH
Co-Founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors
Youth For Public Transport (Y4PT) Foundation
alain.flausch[at]y4pt.org