If I could write a wish list for Christmas now, it would say: “Please don’t forget the children of Thulosirubari!” For two years now, the German aid organization “Nepalhilfe Beilngries” has been building the new school for more than 500 children and young people in the small mountain village about 70 kilometers east of the Nepalese capital Kathmandu. This was made possible by your donations for “School up!”, the aid project that I launched together with the professional mountaineers Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner and Ralf Dujmovits after the devastating earthquake in Nepal in 2015. The money we collect ends up in Thulosirubari and is used exclusively for the new construction.

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Even the darkness cannot prevent construction from continuing in Thulosirubari. For 18 hours, concrete is mixed in the small mountain village 70 kilometers east of the Nepalese capital Kathmandu, transported upwards and distributed, then finally the second floor slab is casted. “Only one machine for mixing concrete was used for the work, the rest was done by physical labor,” writes Shyam Pandit, liaison man of the German aid organisation Nepalhilfe Beilngries. “Special skilled laborers were brought from Kathmandu for the casting.” After the first two parts of the new school building have been used for teaching since last spring, the construction work for the third section is now on the home straight: If everything goes according to plan, the new building with eight more classrooms could be completed in spring 2019.

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“The construction work is going smoothly,” writes Shyam Pandit, who coordinates the projects of the German aid organisation Nepalhilfe Beilngries in the Himalayan state. At the end of last week, Shyam once again visited the construction site of the new school in the mountain village of Thulosirubari, some 70 kilometers east of the capital Kathmandu. After teaching in the first two parts of the building started as well as using the corresponding toilet block, the third and last section of the building is being constructed right next door. Your donations made this possible for our aid project “School up!”, which I founded together with the two climbers Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner and Ralf Dujmovits after the devastating earthquake in 2015, in order to rebuild the destroyed school in Thulosirubari as quickly as possible.

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“The construction work is going smoothly,” writes Shyam Pandit, liaison man of the German aid organisation “Nepalhilfe Beilngries” in Nepal. In Thulosirubari, a small mountain village about 70 kilometers east of the capital Kathmandu, the third part of the new school with eight additional classrooms is being built. The foundations are laid, the base plate is soon to be concreted. If all goes well, this third building could be ready by 2019. The first two buildings with classrooms for twelve school classes were – as reported – ceremonially inaugurated in March. At that time Ralf Dujmovits, the only German climber so far who stood on all 14 eight-thousanders, and I laid the foundation stone for the next construction phase in Thulosirubari.

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This roadblock is not an ordinary one. Five hundred meters in front of the school grounds in Thulosirubari, 70 kilometers east of the Nepalese capital Kathmandu, our journey in a jeep ends. Eight musicians stand in the middle of the dusty piste through the village. When Ralf Dujmovits – the first and so far only German mountaineer who scaled all 14 eight-thousanders – and I get out of the car, they begin to play for us on their traditional instruments. Behind the music playing village band  we ascend the last meters to the school.

There a big event has been organized for us. Several hundred students, parents, teachers, local notables and other residents of Thulosirubari are awaiting us for the ceremonial inauguration and handing over of the first two parts of the building to the local school committee – made possible by your donations to our aid project “School up!”. The old school had been so badly damaged by the devastating earthquake in Nepal on 25 April 2015 that it had had to be demolished. At the end of June 2015, I had launched together with Ralf Dujmovits and the Austrian climber Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner “School up!” to rebuild the Thulosirubari school as soon as possible.

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Four are standing around and discussing, one is working. This image is known from public construction sites in Germany. The situation is quite different in Thulosirubari, a small village about 70 kilometers east of Kathmandu. There the new school is being built with great enthusiasm – made possible by your donations for our aid projekt “School up!”. “All villagers are happy to be able to help with the work,” says Shyam Pandit, liaison man of the German aid organization “Nepalhilfe Beilngries” in the Himalayan state. Devi Dulal, head of the local school committee, is also delighted: “This will be a unique building for us. The work on this is very satisfactory for us.” The old school had been so badly damaged by the devastating earthquake at the end of April 2015 that it had had to be demolished. At the end of June 2015, I had launched – along with the extreme climbers Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner and Ralf Dujmovits – “School up!” to rebuild the school as quickly as possible. In the meantime, the ceiling of the first floor has been concreted. Here are some impressions of the construction site from the past weeks:

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“School up!” is no longer just a donation campaign, but a project that is realized. Thanks to your donations, the first building of the new school is being constructed in the small village of Thulosirubari, some 70 kilometers east of the Nepalese capital Kathmandu. “Digging foundation has been started. Construction materials have been dropped on site,” Shyam Pandit wrote to me these days. Shyam is the liaison man of the German aid organization “Nepalhilfe Beilngries” in Nepal. “I was on-site and talked to the contractor. He said and committed, the building would be finished before the next raining season June/July 2017, except painting. They are really moving on.”

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Yesterday, Sunday, was a very special day for the people of Thulosirubari. One who made a mark for the future, a sign of hope. In the small village in Sindhupalchowk District, about 70 kilometers east of the Nepalese capital Kathmandu, the cornerstone for a new school was set. The old “Gerlinde and Ralf School” of the German aid organization Nepalhilfe Beilngries (NHB) had been so badly damaged by the devastating earthquake on 25 April 2015 that it later had to be demolished. In the summer of 2015, I had initiated, along with the professional climbers Ralf Dujmovits and Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner, the donation campaign “School up!”, with the goal to rebuild the school in Thulosirubari as soon as possible. Therefore yesterday was for us three a special day too – and also for all of you who have donated for “School up!”: Without your support, no foundation would have been laid yesterday.

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… go! Not only Olympic athletes are currently waiting for this call. People in Thulosirubari are in the starting blocks too. Hopefully we are only few days away from the start of the construction of the new school at this small village in Sindhupalchowk District in Nepal. According to the German aid organization “Nepalhilfe Beilngries” finally all bureaucratic barriers have been broken down so that the school for 700 children and adolescents in Thulosirubari can be rebuilt. That has been and will be the goal of the aid project “School up!” that I had launched along with the professional climbers Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner from Austria and Ralf Dujmovits from Germany a year ago. The “Gerlinde and Ralf School”, which had been inaugurated only in 2009, was so badly damaged by the devastating earthquake in Nepal on 25 April 2015 that it had to be demolished.

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It was simply too dangerous. In the village of Thulosirubari in the Nepalese earthquake zone, residents and helpers of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) have begun to remove the debris of the school. The building that was heavily damaged by the quake on 25 April “stands dangerously on the side of the ground where children use to play”, Arjun Gatraj, chairman of the School Management Committee, writes to me. As reported, the ground floor of the “Gerlinde and Ralf School” had collapsed, the building cannot be maintained. “These days, we have the big problem on how to destroy the main building and how to clear the rubble”, says Arjun. “We have no money for that ant the Government of Nepal is also not able to support us.”

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It looked as if the magician David Copperfield had staged one of his grand illusions. “The school was much smaller than I remembered it”, Ralf Dujmovits tells me. “First I didn’t even realize that the ground floor had just slumped down. The upper parts of the building were still standing. Only when I got loser, I saw the extent of damage. That really brought tears to my eyes.” Germany’s most successful high altitude climber visited the “Gerlinde and Ralf School” in Thulosirubari one and a half weeks after the devastating earthquake in Nepal. Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner and Ralf Dujmovits had given financial support to the project of the German aid organization “Nepalhilfe Beilngries” and thus had made it possible that the school had been opened in 2009. “If you suddenly realize that the building has to be demolished, you just begin to cry”, says Ralf. You all can help to rebuild the school by supporting the campaign “School up!”.

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