Nepal Project 2026
Volunteering & giving back
In February 2026 I'll return to Kathmandu to volunteer as a teacher and a photographer & film maker at the SMD School in Kathmandu, Nepal .Â
My 22-year old son and a good friend of his will join me and together we have four goals:
Teach staff members and senior students the basics of photography and videography so that they can produce image content for their fundraising efforts themselves.
Create a short documentary film and social media assets for the school to use for fundraising.
Work on a photographic portrait series.
Donate digital cameras and hardware to the school.
The school needs cameras!
Please, if you have a functional digital camera or accessories collecting dust at home, consider donating it to the SMD School. Anything: DSLR, compact cameras, external hard drives, lenses.
I will collect the cameras and bring them to Nepal personally.
Anything sent via the mail does not arrive.
Background
In 2015, my young son and I spent a few weeks at SMD School, visiting for the first time. I was meant to teach a group of older students photography and videography but then the big 2015 earthquake struck the country. The school building was damaged badly, the children were forced to live and learn outside in tents and under tarps. I wasn't able to finish the project.
School for Himalayan Children
The SMD School provides free education, housing and full care for over 400 children from some of the most impoverished and most remote Himalayan villages in northern Nepal. Villages that are extremely isolated and require a 7-day foot march to reach at the nearest road and that offer almost no educational opportunities. The school is located in Kathmandu and is fully funded by private donations. Most students live full-time at the SMD boarding school and are given a secular education according to the Nepalese school curriculum. In addition, they are also taught Tibetan Buddhist teachings and culture to be able to hold onto their Himalayan cultural heritage.
The 2015 Earthquake that shook Nepal
Through pure coincidence, my son Luca and I were in the Mount Everest region, hiking, when the devastating earthquake struck Nepal. We were unscathed but stuck high up in the Khumbu Valley, just two hours outside of Everest Base Camp. It took us a week to reach Kathmandu and to see the damage to the school with our own eyes.
Back at the school and according to Buddhist teachings, the staff and students put all their effort and the remaining financial means together, bought staple food supplies and repackaged the food into family-sized portions.
My son Luca and I helped as best as we could and joined the convoys that delivered food to the outlying villages around Kathmandu. It was a very humbling and sobering experience and left a very deep impression on both of us - for me as a father, and for Luca as a young child, witnessing the suffering but also the resolve and selflessness of the SMD staff and students!
The school building sustained structural damage and wasn't safe anymore. The students had to live and learn outside in the open, under big tarps and tents, for two years before the building was finally repaired.Â
