£15,000 Raised For Taplejung Ambulance Service

The annual charity dinner hosted by the Nepalese Doctors Association took place on Saturday April 20th, 2013 at the North Middlesex University Hospital. The fundraiser was organized to establish an ambulance service in a rural part of Taplejung in Eastern Nepal. The ambulance service hopes to connect villages including Sinam, Ambegudin, Limbudin and many more, to major hospitals in the district and the Southern part of Nepal. The service is also expected to bring better medical facilities to the existing village health posts. The charity dinner started promptly at 6.30PM followed by a welcome speech by Dr Beena Subba, the chairman of the organising committee of the NDA UK. Following the introduction, I took over and informed the 250 attendees about why we were gathered and what an ambulance can do for this part of Nepal.

Guest of Honour, Mr. Charles Walker, a Member of Parliament for Broxbourne, gave a speech followed by chief guest, councilor Kate Anoloue, Mayor of Enfield, also expressed her opinion and shared the need of more charitable work to support in need. Dr. Bharat Shrestha, President of NDA UK also shared his thoughts for the cause. He also handed a cheque of £500 to the sickle cell charity run by the mayor of Enfield, and another cheque of £250 to the children’s scheme, a charity run by the MP for Broxbourne.

The dinner had some very entertaining dance performances by Nepali youths from different parts of the UK. The dance was being judged by three senior members of NDA UK. The first prize of £150 was bagged by Bidhya Khebang Limbu and Prerana Limbu. Well done to all of the dancers, it was thoroughly entertaining. Former Mr Nepal 2002 Rohit Thebe and Swarnim Maden hosted the cultural part of the evening.

Believe it or not there was even an auction at the dinner! Now this could have either gone really well or horribly wrong. The two items up for bidding was a special silver Kothimara Khukuri and a large Khukuri Rum. The Kothimara Khukuri was sold for £140 and the Khukuri Rum at £50, all of the amount will be put towards the cost of the ambulance. The Kothimara Khukuri was donated by Mrs Nirupa Thebe Bantawa and the Khukuri Rum by Mrs Bimala Thebe.

Though the target was to raise £12,000, the evening concluded on a very successful note with more attendees than expected and a grand total of £15,000 raised for the ambulance service. Huge shoutout to the volunteers for jazzing up the venue and bringing it to life, Mrs Geeta Limbu for preparing the starters, Mr Bijay Thebe for sponsoring the buffet dinner catered by Mr Khem Raj Maden and Mrs Tika Gurung who was in charge of the vegetarian dishes. The dinner was really nice, honestly.

PS. Do watch this space for more, there will be some key developments within the next few months. AND they also congratulated all the new doctors too! So all the upcoming doctors, do have a think about keeping in contact with the NDA UK.