Visit to Nepalese orphanage was a life-changing experience

There was no running water and the electricity had long since been cut off. The dangerously ramshackle, four-storey hovel was without bedding and the 20 or so young inhabitants shared a filthy squat toilet.

Ian and Rosa Matheson looked at each other and knew, without really saying anything, they just couldn’t walk away.

Today, the fortunes of the same children the Highworth couple encountered four years ago in Nepal have undergone a dramatic transformation. They have food, they have water, they have education and – most importantly – they have hope.

During that time retired GP Ian and author/historian Rosa have raised around £40,000 through their charity, the Friends of Angel’s Orphanage which has transformed these young lives.

It is an ongoing challenge for the couple to keep up with rising living costs, medical and education bills.

But they are as determined now as they were then to do everything possible for their “big family”, as they affectionately refer to them. “We are very much committed to the family” says Ian. “We are in it for the long haul.”

The couple’s life-altering visit to Kathmandu followed a call in 2009 from one of their four children, James, who was involved in a project to provide medication to Nepalese villages.

James asked his father, a former paediatrician to help out while his mother found herself running a clinic to provide free spectacles.

“They walked for hours and hours and hours up and down mountains to get to the clinic,” recalls Rosa.

“Their eyes were tested and we’d give them glasses. You should have seen their faces when they put them on. I was in tears half the time.”

Two days before flying back they were approached in their Kathmandu hotel by a dreadlocked stranger who told them: “I have a big family with sick children and no money. Can you help?”

Remembers Ian: “We were a little wary. There is a huge amount of corruption concerning orphanages in Nepal. They can be run by people with fat bellies; the money goes to them not to the children, who are exploited.”

Nevertheless they took a ten minute rickshaw ride with the man known as Angel to a crumbling house in a poverty-stricken ghetto. Occupied by 21 children and three adults, it was a sight the couple will never forget.

Says Ian: “It was really awful. The children were gaunt with a haunted look on their faces. They seemed extremely anxious. It was obvious they had no idea where the next meal was coming from, or even the next drink. The house was in very poor condition. It smelt of urine from top to bottom.”

Angel offered the Mathesons tea but had to send out for a bottle of water as the taps had long since run dry. The family normally made do with filthy brown stuff from a well.

With no electricity they took them to the roof so Ian could examine the children – aged from one to 12 – in the fading evening light. “They were in a bad way. By now it was clear this was a genuine problem.”

Ian dealt with their immediate medical concerns as best he could, treating various ailments from chest and ear infections to worms and lice.

The couple paid the family’s outstanding bills and ensured they had enough food and water for the immediate future. But that, they realised, was not enough.

Says Ian: “In the past westerners had visited and promised help. Some had given donations. They said they would get back in touch after leaving Nepal. But there had been a lot of broken promises. People go home, get on with their own lives.”

Rosa recalls: “Our introduction to the orphanage was traumatic. We were deeply shocked at the conditions the children were living in yet greatly humbled by their obvious joy at being all together and part of a family.

“We decided we could not walk away and leave these children in such a poor state, we had to help to alleviate their poverty and distress.”

The remarkable story behind Angel’s Orphanage also emerged during the Mathesons’ last day in Nepal.

Amrit Bikram Shahi, who adopted the name Angel after converting to Christianity, had been a professional guide specialising in trekking tours. In 1999, while trekking with clients, he came across a bedraggled six year-old boy living with his aged grandmother in little more than a hole in the ground covered with tarpaulin and surviving on flour and water.

Angel, just 20, was touched at the boy’s plight and offered to raise him as his own. Barely able to look after herself, she readily agreed. Word got around. Angel became a magnet for abandoned or orphaned children of which, sadly, there was no shortage.

Angel’s family grew and grew – he didn’t have the heart to turn down a destitute child.

However, a civil war involving Maoist rebels brought Nepal’s tourist industry to its knees and Angel found himself increasingly struggling to feed and house his burgeoning family.

When Ian and Rosa happened upon them, Angel, who is now 34, was living with his wife Ashworya, 25, their two children and 19 “orphans. Says Ian: “Angel’s orphans aren’t necessarily without parents; because of extreme poverty they get abandoned and become homeless, street children.”

Ian continues: “Angel is a remarkable man. He has an enormous heart. But he’s no saint. He’s had to live on his wits, to duck and dive. It’s been very difficult for him, but somehow he’s managed to keep the family going. ”

Upon returning to Highworth, Ian and Rosa set up the Friends of Angel’s Orphanage charity. Within several months they had raised enough to re-house the impoverished family.

“By our standards it is a nice family house for a couple with three or four children... 21 children live there, but it is infinitely better than before. By Nepalese standards it is comfortable.”

The charity sends monthly money for food and clean drinking water and pays the family’s rent, tax, electric and gas.

It has also found the children a good school, and buys their books and equipment.

“They are doing very well; a couple of them have come top of their class,” says Ian, with obvious pride.

Ian and Rosa have just returned from their fifth visit to the family. “We’d like to go twice a year but it’s so expensive.”

They are keen to highlight that every penny raised through the charity goes to the family.

Ian says: “We pay all the administrative costs ourselves, all of our own expenses. If somebody gives £10 to the charity, then £10 will go to the children.”

Rosa adds: “When we were there last month Ian gave the children a medical once over and found that one boy Deepak has a ‘hole-in-the-heart’ so will need an operation. “Everything has to be paid for: every syringe used, even tissues. One overnight stay with x-ray and care earlier this year cost us £200, so we need some serious money for an operation. Ian adds: “The family has become a huge part of our lives. We think about them all the time. It is a privilege to be involved.”