The association Friends of Chepel e.V. was founded in October 2012 following a private initiative and a close personal friendship with the family of Karma Sherpa from Chepel, a remote village in the Solukhumbu district of Nepal. I met Karma, who is a Sherpa and an expedition and trekking guide, during my first trekking tour in Nepal. For 7 years now Karma has been our marvellous project manager for all projects in Chepel.
In the course of my first trekking tour I decided to invite Karma to Germany and show him our country. One year later I was invited by him to his village Chepel, which is completely aside of any tourist route and thus had and still has no touristic infrastructure at all.
In the first year it was a 1-day jeep and 5-days tough trek over 3 passes to eventually reach Chepel.
After I had visited the little village for the first time in 2012 it was obvious that the population would very much benefit from some support and with Karma and his nephew Mingma we decided to establish Friends of Chepel e.V.
The aim and work of the organisation is based on sustainability and respects the culture and wishes of the people in Chepel. We support the people of the village with targeted help based on their own initiatives, as each idea comes from the local village committee itself. Suggested projects are then brought to the attention of the whole village and agreed upon. And the active support of the villagers, mostly their manpower, is asked for each project.
Since we work on a completely voluntary basis each and every single Euro given for the foundation goes 1:1 directly to Chepel, for that I personally guarantee!
If you want to help improve the living conditions of the people around Chepel then please donate to one of our projects.
Or join us as a member and get engaged for a better future for the people in Nepal!
Or take over a scholarship for a student for 250 EUR a year.
If you have any further questions regarding our projects or other aspects of our work or Nepal in general, please don’t hesitate to contact us.