Kishori is a man who thought he had lost everything when he was diagnosed with leprosy over four years ago. Rejected by his family and his community, Kishori wanted to die, and saw no way out. Read how joining a Self Help Group restored his life (click here).

Neelam first came to Lalgadh with leprosy symptoms when she was 6 years old. Her sister Poonam also has leprosy and although they have taken the medicine and the leprosy bacteria are all dead, they continue to live with the damage that leprosy has done and face a bleak future. Neelam has been treated at Lalgadh 10 times now and is currently in the Inpatient Department being treated for seriously infected foot ulcers.  Read about the problems that Leprosy has caused Neelam (click here).

Friends of Dr Graeme and Meena Clugston are putting on two music evenings in Geneva in the Auditoire de Calvin (next to the cathedral) to highlight the work of NLT and raise much needed funds. The first on Sunday 9th June at 5pm includes music by Bach, Telemann and Ian Clarke, and Shakespeare songs by Thomas Arne, Erich Korngold and Roger Quilter. The second on Sunday 16th June, will be a Children’s Concert in support of children with leprosy at Lalgadh. In this concert, the musical items will be interspersed with individual stories of children with leprosy, most of whom are patients at Lalgadh at the moment. These stories will be read by the concert performers as if they are the children in the story. Be prepared to be moved.

Richard Bourke, a member of the Order of St Lazarus of Jerusalem, a humanitarian organisation with a particular interest in helping people affected by leprosy, is taking part in the Great North Swim. This takes place in Lake Windermere on Saturday 15 June 2013, and Richard will be raising money for the work of NLT. Richard works part-time with Barclays Bank which runs a scheme whereby they support any initiatives from their employees to raise money for charity by matching pound for pound (up to £750) whatever money the employee raises. This potentially enables a substantial amount of money to be raised for NLT’s work, so please support him and ask your friends to support him as well. Richard has created a page on the Just Giving website which makes it easy to donate funds for his swim.

The direct link to Richard’s page is: https://www.justgiving.com/Richard-Bourke1

Many of you will be aware of the road widening activity taking place in Kathmandu, and its threat to our office building in Satdobato, south of the Ring Road near Lalitpur. It seems that the plans to widen our road are going forward, although the authorities have agreed to a narrower format than originally planned. This means that only the front 8 feet of our office needs to be chopped off!

As you can see from the picture, the wall in front of the building has now been demolished, and a contractor is to be engaged to take off the front of the building and rebuild a new front following the new building line at what will be the pavement edge. Read the rest of this page »