Dr Debbie Eklund, a retired Public Health consultant, who has served as a Trustee since 2013 and initiated the health project has now retired from her role as Joint Health Programme Lead at the Trust. We have much to thank Debbie for – Dr Eklund formed a partnership with Action for Nepal( AfN,) an NGO based in Kathmandu who oversee our projects and as a result of her endless enthusiasm and working partnership with Dr Kate Keohane we now have a fully functioning and successful Health Programme. As a Trust, we have focussed much of our work on improving Maternal and Child Health outcomes and Debbie played a crucial role in this. We wish her all the best in her retirement and know she will continue to keep a close eye on our activities.
As a result of Debbie’s retirement we are now looking for a new Joint Health Programme Lead to work together with Dr Kate Keohane, a retired GP who became a Trustee in 2015.
The Himalayan Trust UK has been working since 1989 to help the mountain people of Nepal. We strive to improve health and education in the mountainous regions of North eastern Nepal, particularly in the Taplejung region.
We still hold to the guiding principles laid down by Sir Edmund Hillary when he founded the first Himalayan Trust in 1960:
> To focus on basic infrastructure – education, health, environment
> To do only that which is requested by the mountain people
> To involve the mountain people themselves in the work – “self help”
> To minimise all unnecessary cost and to facilitate direct transfer of funds
> To look for long term sustainability and independence for the mountain people
Read more about the impact and current work in our Health section.
The HTUK currently has an annual budget of about £130k. We wish to increase this by about 40-50% to allow us to expand our health-related activities, to extend the educational training supported by HTUK and to meet growing needs for improved facilities and resources in both schools and health clinics.
HTUK is a small charity which prides itself on keeping administrative costs below 3% of donations. For this reason we do not employ anyone in an executive role. It is expected that each trustee will be involved in the general work of the Trust (overseeing the strategy and direction of the organisation, reviewing the activities of our NGO in Nepal, supporting events etc) and will also have a specialist role in line with their own experience and qualifications. There are, for instance, small teams on the Trust which monitor and help to develop our programmes in education and health as well as a Chairman, Hon. Secretary, Treasurer and people with marketing and legal expertise.
Further information about the role can be found here
Joint Health Programme Lead Trustee
