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There is nothing like seeing hope for the future in the midst of hardship and devastation that seems insurmountable. But it’s here, alive and well in Nepal and it’s unbelievable.  The unbeatable Nepali spirit is a constant inspiration and makes me realize that perception can often help us beat the odds. For Nepali’s they have no option so they make the best of a very, very difficult situation and amazingly theydo it with a smile.  So we move forward into a New Year (literally, the Nepali New Year is in a few weeks) with the odds still difficult but the will as strong as the Himalaya!

Being in Nepal we get to see the spirit of the future in the brightness of the eyes of the 3 young women who received the Joy Attwood College Scholarship fund from CCF several days ago. Three girls who worked hard, even when they lost their homes.  Girls who had the tenacity to continue to work hard in school and apply for and win the CCF scholarships. They and their parents were so proud. The

y kept their hope alive through it all and see themselves becoming nurses and a cardiologist and returning to their villages to care for the poor. Their parents work with the Fair Trade organization, the Association for Craft Producers, which has had the foresight to organize stipends from CCF’s Power of 5 donations to enable the producers to keep their girls in school. It keeps hope alive. We have seen first hand the effect of your donations to Conscious Connections Foundation and the effectiveness that this money and kindness has wrought. We have been very deliberate with this money and have seen hope come alive in areas where we thought none could exist. We cannot thank you enough for that support, both monetarily and spiritually. CCF board member Cameron Conner and CCF volunteer Grant Gallaher have just completed an extensive evaluation of the work of CCF over these past 11 months of Earthquake relief so that you can see where your dollars went and how effective they were. We invite you all to take a look at this and realize how your donations have kept hope alive.

Through these past 11 months we have also witnessed, in a very unique way, the value of economic partnership, through long-standing fair trade relationships. Fair Trade Federation members, in addition to Ganesh Himal, have kept producers hope alive and helped them weather an incomprehensible natural disaster. It strengthens my belief in the Fair Trade model even more and makes me understand how valuable it is in creating a future that is hopeful. There is a Hindu proverb that says it all “Help your neighbor’s boat across and lo, your own has reached the shore”. It really is that simple. We can help each other; it keeps hope alive.

There are so many stories I could share with you but right now we have a clinic to build, a small rural K-3 school to finish, more food aid to distribute, producers to work with and new products to create!  Thank you for standing beside us and keeping our hope alive. I hope to have more amazing stories to share with you in the near future.

Namaste,

Denise & Ric