URGENT NEWS – NLT’s Kathmandu Headquarters under threat!!

Nepal Leprosy Trust in Kathmandu has been informed that it is the intention of the Nepali Government to shortly begin road widening works in the area of our office.This will involve the demolishing of our office building (pictured left) whch we built in the late 1980s to house our sheltered leather workshop and be the administrative centre for NLT’s many projects.

It seems that the municipal authorities are not concerned with the misery and problems they will cause to many businesses and organizations like ours and apparently will not even compensate us for the loss of land and assets. Worse still, if they do the demolishing, they will actually charge us for the privilege! Of the many injustices of this situation, one of the worst is that the government owns large areas of open land on the side of the road opposite our office. The lower picture on the left is taken from this land looking towards the office.

However, it seems that rather than use a little bit of their own land to widen the road, they would prefer to demolish all the buildings on the other side of the road, including ours. This work is apparently funded by the World Bank and has been carried out aggressively in various parts of Kathmandu causing much loss to individuals and businesses affected.

Please do pray that the autorities will change their mind, and also that NLT will find a way to fund a replacement building if necessary and re-house its projects. In the UK we will start a rebuilding fund and will be very grateful for any contributions you feel able or led to make at this challenging time.