Travel bans are issued. NYF Founder Olga Murray sadly departs Kathmandu and returns home to Sausalito, California.

• Nepal’s strict, nation-wide lockdown goes into effect on March 24, 2020. Both China and India close their borders to Nepal, leaving the small land-locked country with skyrocketing prices for food, medicine, and other essentials.
• Olgapuri Children’s Village continues its own very strict lockdown to ensure that all 77 of the children who live there are safe. The children find creative ways to learn and stay active with help from their live-in house parents.
• Learn more about life during lockdown at Olgapuri here.

• In response to rising food costs in urban areas of Nepal, NYF begins a pop-up Community Nutrition Kitchen program in Lalitpur to provide hot, nutritious lunches free-of-charge to children.
• Click here to read more about our pop-up Community Nutrition Kitchens.

• “Nepal families face hunger, skip meals as pandemic hits remittances,” writes journalist Gopal Sharma. For the months since the lockdown began, individuals have not been able to work. Forced into tough decisions between rent and food, many are going hungry.
• Read the article on Reuters here.

• Though the government has relaxed its restrictions, Olgapuri remains strictly on lockdown. The children continue to stay at home, attending virtual classes every day.
• NYF’s Vocational Education team starts a new mobile training program in order to serve students safely during COVID times. 135 students join in July, and NYF considers plans to continue the program even after COVID times.

• According to the Nepal Development Update and the World Bank, Nepal faces the risk of nearly one third of its population — who are just above the poverty line — could fall below the line due to the loss of the livelihood caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Read the article here.

• By recommendation of The Social Welfare Council, NYF pauses the pop-up nutrition kitchen program. With people resuming work and receiving an income again, there is less urgency for free meals.
• NYF will continue distributing Lito packages to families in need, and will be ready to resume the pop-up kitchen program if it is needed.

• An additional 46 Access to Education Centers open in two rural municipalities in Dhading District.
• With an average of 100 students per satellite center, NYF provides 5,000 K-10 students with educational opportunities they haven’t had in six months, and mobilizes 354 teachers who are already on the Nepalese government’s payroll.
• Read more about these new Access to Education Centers.

India (and China to follow) donates 1 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to Nepal. The first 500,000 healthcare workers in Nepal have begun to be vaccinated.

• All NYF staff members at the Nutritional Rehabilitation Home and New Life Center receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Staff members at Olgapuri Children’s Village are in the process of getting vaccinated.
• Read more about NYF staff members getting vaccinated!

• As cases surge, another government-mandated lockdown starts in Kathmandu to help slow the spread of COVID-19.
• Hospitals are already full. Vaccinated NYF staff members set up COVID isolation facilities.
• Read more about NYF’s COVID isolation center.

• Nepal Youth Foundation opened our first COVID Isolation Center in our Kathmandu Nutritional Rehabilitation Home on Tuesday, May 4th, and it is already full, mostly with people under the age of 18.
• Isolation centers provide safe care for individuals who have been infected with COVID-19 and must be isolated from their families, but who are not sick enough to be hospitalized.
• Read more about NYF’s COVID isolation center.

• NYF’s stock of already-prepared and packaged Lito continues to be distributed, along with other staples like rice and potatoes.
• Team members make deliveries to orphanages, children’s hospitals, long-term care facilities, food banks, and other locations where individuals can access this critical resource.

• After a few weeks of operation, NYF’s COVID Isolation Center adds four “High-Dependency Units” or HDUs. Patients in need of hospital intervention will be moved to this area and held here, under stabilizing, high-level care and using special equipment, until NYF is certain a hospital ICU bed has been found for them.
• See pictures of NYF’s High-Dependency Units.

The 50-bed capacity isolation center has been able to provide life-saving services to over 205 patients who were unable to isolate themselves at home.

• Following a recent government decision to re-open public spaces, NYF suspends isolation center services to fully resume our regular NRH programming. Since its opening, we’ve admitted and treated more than 240 COVID-positive patients at our facilities.
• We are continuing to produce Lito, our homemade “super” flour, at the NRH and are still distributing them to communities in need via the Lito for Life program.

All children 12 and over at Olgapuri Children’s Village receive their second COVID-19 vaccination. NYF will arrange vaccinations for the younger children as soon as the shots are available for them in Nepal.

• With only 40% of its population being vaccinated, Nepal is experiencing another surge in COVID-19 cases. Public schools will remain closed until the end of January 2022.
• NYF responds quickly by resuming COVID procedures again, including a full lockdown of Olgapuri Children’s Village and limited programming at the Nutritional Rehabilitation Home (NRH). NYF students return to remote-learning.

• After two long years, the children’s residence section of Olgapuri Children’s Village is fully open. All the kids have resumed in-person classes and are attending school daily.
• Eight high school graduates at Olgapuri move into university dorms or private hostels.

The first phase of COVID-19 vaccinations for children between five and 11 years of age starts in 27 districts in Nepal.