The board

 

The members of the board of the foundation are Hemmy Clevis, Pauli Gerritsen and Klaas de Vries. But more persons are connected with the projects as well in the Netherlands as in Nepal.

 

Hemmy Clevis, president Madat Nepal

Hemmy is an archaeologist of profession and specialized in the material culture of the Middle Ages. After ten years of work for the State Service of Archaeological Investigations he has been working 33 years as town archaeologist of Zwolle. Together with a colleague he has a bookshop and a publishing house of archaeological publications. He is also still writing archaeological publications. He knows Pauli Gerritsen from his time at the State Service, where they were colleagues. Together with her he founded Madat Nepal. Hemmy mainly takes care of the financing of projects, financial guidance and control of the projects in Nepal. Until 2017 he also supported the producer families of the Madat Nepal Handel foundation.

Pauli Gerritsen, treasurer

Pauli was botanical  analist and worked on botanical research for the archaeology. In 1987 she left her job and her volunteer work for Nepal started. For more than twenty years she organized two times a year travel tours to Nepal. She learned the language and because of her direct contact with the people she gained a good insight in the needs and requirements of the people. Demands for help came from the mountain people in remote areas when she visited them with her groups. To give structural help, she decided together with Hemmy to create the Madat Nepal foundation. Pauli is an enthusiast photographer and won several prices in the last year, mainly because of photo documentaries about Nepal, which also benefited the attention for the projects. The photo’s in this website (almost all from her hand) are to visualize information and results for the donors.

Klaas de Vries, secretary

Klaas studied construction and hydraulic engineering and specialized himself in concrete engineering (bridges, harbors and tunnels). Since 1980 he worked for the conservancy of water (Rivierenland) for the cleaning of sewage until his pension in 2002. Because of his contact with Hemmy and Pauli and his interest for the projects in Nepal he succeeded Rianne Hendriks as secretary. Klaas mainly works for trying to find co financing for the projects from the national development organizations. Apart from his work as a secretary he actively participates in discussions about decisions from the board. He visited Nepal many times to keep in touch with the Nepalese contacts.

People involved in Nederland

Rob Gerritsen, website administrator

Rob is married with Pauli. Until 2015 he was aquatic ecologist at the conservatory of Waterschap Vallei en Veluwe. Since his pension he started to build the new website of Madat Nepal. Hij has been often in Nepal and visited the mountain area a few months after the earthquake. He is also an enthousiast photographer and together with Pauli he created in 2016 the photo exhibition ‘Nepal after the earthquake’.

 Wim Klawer, Fair Trade business

Wim took care during 20 years of the business of Madat Nepal Handel as importer for the world shops. During these 20 years the business foundation has always paid all the overhead of Madat Nepal. Unfortunately the business foundation went bankrupt in the beginning of 2017.  Wim continued with Madat Fair Treasures, but now Madat Nepal has to finance its own overhead. Wim has been committed to keeping fair trade in the Netherlands really fair trade for years.

People involved in Nepal

Kanchha Lama,  project leader

Kanchha has been one of our project leaders from the start. In his homeland, Thulo Parsel, we started with building a school, a health post and organized health camps. The last two years, after the earthquake, Kanchha has been very busy with rebuilding schools.

 

Chudamani Kayastha, organisation

Chudamani has been involved with the trade foundation From the beginning, but  gradually he also started working for Madat Nepal. In recent years, he has taken care of most of the financial accounting arranges the payments of -among other things- teachers’ salaries and has supervised the construction of the day center for multiple disabled children.