Remembering the Earthquake: 7 Years Later

On April 25, 2015, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake stuck Nepal, destroying hundreds of thousands of homes and taking thousands of lives.

Conscious Impact and the community of Takure responded by working together to rebuild. Now, 7 years later, the work continues…

Become a Sustainer

Remembering April 25th, 2015

It was 12pm on April 25th, 2015, when a 7.8 magnitude earthquake shook Nepal and changed the lives of everyone across the country. The earthquake, based outside of the town of Gorkha, killed 9,000 people, injuring 22,000 others, and leaving more than 400,000 people homeless. In the community of Takure, all of the homes but one were lost.

Even today, when Takure locals describe that day, you can still feel the emotion and devastation of the memory.

Kumari Bomjan, the Agriculture Program Coordinator for Conscious Impact, explains that she still cannot believe it happened, a horrific event that deeply affected her and her family. “I was on a bus traveling back to a teaching post when I heard a rumble, and as I looked across the valley at the city of Melamchi, buildings had turned to dust.” As she sat upon the river bank, crying, she tried repeatedly to reach her family members via phone. She felt they had died, until her father drove up on his motorcycle, having searched for her all day long. She says her community felt it was the end of the world. Immediately after the earthquake, aftershocks continued and monsoon rains fell two months early, ruining everything that could have been salvaged from the rubble.

Narayan “Mama” Bhattarai, Community Outreach Coordinator for Conscious Impact, says the day will forever feel tragic. He pulled out his uncles from the rubble of their homes, tried to save multiple livestock, and worked for days supporting his community to build temporary shelters so they could begin to feel some sense of security.

Pabritra Khanal, a local Takure resident, remembers her own husband being trapped underneath their house as she worked with neighbors to uncover the stone on top of him. He was injured badly and was rushed to the hospital to receive treatment where he was able to recover. In the end, by some miracle, no lives were lost in Takure, though dozens were lost in the neighboring communities.

The effect of the earthquake went on for months, even years. Community members share stories of sleeping in their garden fields under plastic tarps for weeks through the monsoon rains from fear of the aftershocks. And when Conscious Impact arrived in August 2015, families were still living in temporary structures built with the remnants of their previous homes.

We began the journey of Conscious Impact with the hope to transform this horrible event into something good.

The beginning of Conscious Impact

When the initial Conscious Impact volunteers arrived in August, 2015, the goal was clear. We had committed to support the community to rebuild their primary schools, and we planned to do that using sustainable, locally sourced building materials. We were not expert builders, or experienced in Nepal, but through dedicated work by international volunteers and local community members, and a bit of miraculous fortune, we completed the Siddhartha Primary School in Bimire just before the rains began in June 2016.

In our first year, we had made nearly 20,000 bricks with over 100 volunteers and rebuilt a beautiful school, but the community had still not begun to rebuild their homes. The work was just beginning…

growing our work over the years

Over the following 5 years, Conscious Impact worked side-by-side the families of Takure and the neighboring communities to make nearly 250,000 earth bricks that have been used to rebuild 100+ homes, 4 community centers, two children’s homes, an elderly center and many more projects. Even more, Conscious Impact’s work expanded to support local farmers in organic coffee production and agroforestry to increase their income and restore local ecology. In the past 5 years, we have planted more than 15,000 coffee, fruit, nut, and native forest trees with more than 350 local farmers. We also began deepening our relationships with the local schools and providing after-school extracurricular activities in the areas of art, girls’ empowerment, English and general homework help. Over the years, as homes were completed and construction slowed, our Agriculture and Youth Empowerment programs became the focus of our work.

CI_Season2_Dec31-Mar14_[full-res]-726.jpg

Responding to the current needs

Over the past 2 years, since COVID-19 transformed the world, Conscious Impact has evolved. Without consistent international volunteers, and facing significant resource limitations, we focused completely on sustaining the small Nepali non-profit that has been born from the efforts of our local team and international supporters over the years. Our Youth Programming and Agriculture programs continue to grow (led by Bishal Khaiju and Kumari Bomjan, respectively), and we have even begun to expand to new projects. Most notably, after years of discussion, we have finally broken ground on a complete domestic water system that will serve 101 families across Takure and the neighboring communities.

It is so inspiring to see the work continue all of these years, led by our local staff and supported by generous donors. As we get further away from the earthquake and continue to find new avenues of supporting rural communities’ resiliency, it has become more difficult to sustain the funds needed for our work.

For that reason, we are asking for help.

Our Sustainers support our programs and work with consistent donations, allowing for programs to expand and explore new possibilities and potentialities of our work.

Water Project - Design & Development.jpg

sustaining Conscious Impact

Many organizations have a start and finish model, but our model is different, we want to support resilient communities to face their ever changing needs which takes time, commitment, flexibility, trust and empathy.

Conscious Impact is more committed to our work now, after 7 years, than ever. While all families have finally been able to rebuild their homes after the earthquake, we believe our work supporting sustainable agriculture, youth empowerment, clean drinking water, and local artisans is more impactful than anything we have previously done. Our vision is for Conscious Impact to continue our work for generations to come, and in order to do this we need international supporters that can help sustain essential resources.

In honor of the 7 year anniversary of the earthquake, our goal is to find 70 new monthly donors that can contribute at least $10/month.

Donate to become a sustainer

Anyone that signs up to donate $25/month or more by May 30th will receive freshly roasted Takure coffee beans, shipped directly to your door. And for $50/month, we will include our newest Conscious Impact T-shirt, designed and made in Nepal.

Thank you to everyone that has continued to make this work possible. We love you, and miss you, and invite you to come to Nepal anytime starting October 1st 2022 when we officially reopen our doors. See you soon!

We are forever grateful for some of our most committed and consistent donors, volunteers, staff and everyone else doing their part. We hope to continue to support communities and individuals to connect with themselves, with one another and with the Earth through conscious and effective service work.

Photography by: Jonathan H. Lee of Subtle Dream Photography, Ankit Tanu, Joshua Umesh Bohara, and others

Written by: Orion Haas and Beth Huggins