The LED Board of Trustees and Val met in December on Val’s return from Nepal and discussed projects completed in 2022 and to plan for 2023.

For the past couple of years, during the COVID pandemic, we’ve focused funds into very necessary ad-hoc projects – in particular food distribution – in the remote communities in Nepal and Peru that we support.

In 2022 Val was at last able to get back to Peru and Nepal, and we have been able to refocus the charity back onto core projects – solar light distribution, education and health development.

2022 Projects

Peru

• Thanks to another generous round of funding from The Derek Moore Foundation, Val was able to distribute LED solar lights to remote communities in the Cordillera Blanca in July.
• LED continues to fund the nurse and medical supplies at Quishuar Health Post and in August Leeds medics James Peaty and George Thomas spent their medical elective volunteering there. As well as providing healthcare from the health post in Quishuar and undertaking home visits for local elderly people who weren’t able to get to the healthpost, James and George also ran a mobile eye clinic in Pingspampa to distribute reading and distance glasses and provided English lessons for local children in Quishuar.  Read more in their reports:
  • James: An Elective Volunteering in a Rural Peruvian Health Clinic
  • George: George Thomas – Medical Elective in Quishuar, Peru – LED Report

Nepal

• Val led two treks in Nepal in October – December 2022, distributing solar lights and eye glasses and running eye clinics in Manaslu, Nar Phu and Solu Khumbu. LED would like to thank Tsering Tarke and Mingmi Sherpa for their assistance in Manaslu and Tenzi and Dr Kami for theirs in Khumbu. 
• In Khumbu Pat Booth led eye clinics and carried out eye assessments to identify people who would benefit from a mobile cataract clinic due to be held in April. You can read Pat’s write up in “Helping with Glasses”: Eye Clinics in Khumbu
• Thame school and community held a reception to thank LED for supporting the teacher and providing school supplies, and for providing food and financial aid during COVID.
• Val and Mary met Ang Rita Sherpa of The Partners Nepal in Kathmandu and he provided an update on the 1 Day 1 Tree project LED had funded in Langtang and in supporting the running costs of the Elderly Care Center old people’s home in Bung.
• The Nepalese Government has taken over provision of medical supplies to the Rasuwa Health Post following LED’s initial funding of construction and supplies.

2023 Projects

Confirmed projects – there will be others:

Peru

• Quishuar Health Post: We’ll continue to fund the nurse and medical supplies.
• Quishuar Health Post Volunteers: Two medics from Dundee Medical School are already confirmed for summer 2023 and Val is talking to two more medics from Leeds about them spending their elective at the health post too.

Nepal

• Bung Old People’s Home & Solar Lights for Langtang: LED is partnering with The Partners Nepal to continue to support the running costs of Bung old people’s home and to provide solar lights for Langtang, which TPN will distribute. Langtang has still not recovered from the 2015 earthquake.
• Thame school: LED will continue support the teacher and provide school supplies for another year.
• Solar lights: One of the remote communities Val will be distributing lights to are the yak herders in the Thame valley to provide protection against increasing numbers of wolves and wolf attacks.

As ever, we’ll be providing ongoing updates via Facebook (Facebook/LEDCharity) and donations are always welcome using our JustGiving page.

LED has registered with easyfundraising.org.uk, which provides an easy way for you to raise money for us as you shop online.

You don’t pay anything extra, and almost 3000 online retailers are signed up, including Amazon, eBay, Argos, John Lewis and many other familiar high street names and supermarket chains. You can read more about easyfundraising on their website.

When you use Google, you’ll notice that some retailers have the easyfundraising icon next to their listing. This means they are offering a donation when you shop online with them.

Here’s how you can use easyfundraising.org.uk  to raise money for LED

The first thing to do is register on easyfundraising.org.uk. Click on “create an account”, then “I want to support a good cause” and type “Light Education Development” in the box – or use this quicklink – and fill out the form to create your account.

If you are a UK taxpayer, once you’ve created your account please click “Yes” in the gift aid box.

You are now ready to raise money for LED whenever you shop online from one of the participating retailers. Here’s how that works:

1. Start at easyfundraising.org.uk: Let’s say you want to buy a pair of shoes from John Lewis. Instead of going to johnlewis.com, you go to easyfundraising.org.uk first – or you can add the easyfundraising Donation Reminder to your browser (read on for details).

2. Make a purchase: You click from the easyfundraising website through to the John Lewis website to make your purchase. That’s it! The price of the shoes is exactly the same as if you’d visited John Lewis directly.

3. We get a donation: After you have bought your shoes, John Lewis will make a donation to LED as a thank you for shopping with them. easyfundraising collect these donations for us, and it costs nothing.

You can skip steps 1 and 2 by adding the easyfundraising Donation Reminder into your browser. Then, when you go on a participating website to buy something you’ll be prompted to click on the easyfundraising “activate donation” button, and we’ll receive the donation from the purchases you make. (Note that this doesn’t work for Amazon and eBay – you need to go via the easyfundraising website.)

You can also download the easyfundraising app for iPhone, iPad and Android.