We have two Facebook accounts.
The Manjushri Educational Project:
https://www.facebook.com/manjushrieducational/
MEP #RebuildNepal:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/manjushrieducational/
Please join us there for regular updates on this meaningful project.
We started the Manjushri Education Project in 2012 with the aim to empower the lives of children in Nepal through education. Since then, our project has touched 75 lives.
The above would not have been achieved without the support of Firefly Mission, a humanitarian organisation based in Singapore. This tremendously charitable organization has supported MEP to build two more blocks of reinforced concrete hostels and a block of two adjacent classrooms for MEP. The construction was completed in April 2016 and a opening ceremony was held on April 2. With the extension of the blocks, we are able to sponsor up to 100 children.
There have been many challenges along the way. One of them included the 7.8 magnitude earthquake last year which killed over 8,000 people and injured more than 21,000. Hundreds of thousands of people were made homeless with entire villages flattened across many districts of the country.
Since the earthquake last year, MEP has also partnered with Firefly Mission to carry out the critical relief work, which included the provision of temporary shelters, freshly cooked food, temporary schooling, gas stoves and tanks, zinc sheets for construction of homes.
In addition, Firefly Mission and MEP sponsors have also sponsored a mass screening for hepatitis B and vaccination for students, villagers and the monastics. To date, we have vaccinated 1,121 people, out of which 1,075 are children and 31 of them are receiving regular treatment for Hepatitis B.
We would like to thank Firefly Mission and all MEP sponsors for their generous donations and supports for the Relief and Rehabilitation project.
Please donate via Paypal at this site (http://manjushrieducational.org/) or contact Robin Chan (chantw1@gmail.com) if you wish to help.
Singaporeans will no longer be able to use PayPal to donate to foreign-registered charities and non-profit organisations (NPOs) by the end of the month.
Online payment giant PayPal will stop providing this service because it lacks the required remittance licence.
It ended its personal payment service last month for the same reason.
However, users here can still make PayPal donations to charities and NPOs registered locally.
Local charities can also still receive payments from PayPal users with accounts registered outside Singapore.
Online shoppers are unaffected.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said in a response to The Straits Times that offering such a payment service without any underlying goods or services transacted requires a remittance licence, which PayPal does not have.
“We’re following a specific law that the local regulators have asked us to follow. We take compliance very seriously,” said Mr Lawrence Chan, PayPal’s Asia Pacific merchant services vice-president.
He added that the move came after recent discussions with the MAS.
PayPal has been incorporated and operating in Singapore since 2005.
Customers were informed of the change via e-mail on Wednesday.
The payments will be phased out starting Thursday – users being gradually unable to send donations to foreign charities – before being fully discontinued by March 31.
Mr Chan said the number of affected customers is “very small” as PayPal’s core business is payment for commercial transactions.
He declined to give details on how many PayPal users there are in Singapore.
Last month, PayPal stopped allowing users here to wire money to one another, or overseas, for personal transactions like cash gifts.
PayPal has no plans to roll back any other payment service, said Mr Chan.
He declined to comment on whether the company will be seeking a remittance licence.
“We’re still supporting charities. They can still use us, they just have to register locally,” he said.
But national director of Habitat for Humanity Singapore Yong Teck Meng said the move would make donations to foreign countries harder. “If you encourage Singaporeans to give overseas, you’re elevating the whole giving culture and you’ll benefit locally as well (by making Singapore a better, more giving society). If you stop folks from giving overseas, you encourage a selfish mindset in charity.”
Habitat for Humanity Singapore will not be too affected as it is registered here and less than 5 per cent of its donors use PayPal, added Mr Yong.
The Money-Changing and Remittance Businesses Act requires remittance businesses to be licensed, banking law academic Sandra Booysen told The Straits Times.
The Act reduces the risk of people losing their money by trying to ensure that entities receiving remittance money are of good character and financially sound, said the assistant professor at the National University of Singapore.
“It is not a case of the MAS trying to obstruct donations to charity; it sounds to me to be a case of applying the law and requiring remittance businesses to be licensed,” said Prof Booysen.
http://www.zdnet.com/sg/paypal-to-stop-singapore-fund-transfers-to-foreign-charities-7000012796/
http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/19/paypal-stops-charity-donations-from-singapore-accounts/
Our Friends from Taiping Bodhi Center have sponsored the following 8 students of MEP Nepal.
Thank you everyone for providing education for the MEP children, who otherwise cannot attend school for various family reasons. Supporting education is the Best way out of poverty and we hope to provide resources and care to the children in every way we can.
Besides paying all the expenses in schools, MEP also provides after school care, food, lodging and tuition for the children so that they can finish their homework under the supervision of our MEP tutor.
Everyone is given equal opportunity and parents who have difficulties are allowed to send their child to our new student hostel for boarding after school. Some parents are also working in the hostel to earn additional income for the family whilst keeping an eye on the progress of all the children.
We also need sponsorship to provide food and lodging for the children and thank you again for helping. Any amount are welcome and USD1 can provide a child with breakfast and dinner per day.
All donation goes directly to the welfare of the children as this program is fully run and managed by volunteers and monks from the temple. All administrative charges are also borne by the temple organisation.
Thank you once again. Your kindness is appreciated by every MEP child.
*s/no 011 has been supported by friends in Taiping Bodhi Center since 2013.
Dear Friends,
Thank you for your support.
We realised that paying for school expenses are not enough, as some of the children do not even have one decent meal a day and a place to study. We are now building a student hostel to house them and provide food and shelter for the students. Some MEP children are now happily studying at the temple.
We have also started the private coaching classes. Tuition classes are conducted daily by our teachers, Ms Sonam and Ms Daki, for our children who are weak in studies. The tuition class are conducted in 2 parts.
1) Morning at 7 am to 8 am
2) Evening at 5 pm to 7 pm
We would like to provide regular updates to all our sponsors. Please let me know if you do not wish to be in this email group for updates. We hope we are not spamming you, as we will only provide quarterly updates. Please also check our FB or website for updates.
You may contact us for more information if you wish to donate to this project (for all children) or provide educational support to any specific child. Please email robin3388@gmail.com.
You can donate via Paypal on this site (see left hand corner) but you will need to have an account with Paypal before you can donate. Opening an account with Paypal is free, and we will bear the usual administrative charges upon receipts.
Alternatively, you may visit Khenpo Namdrol Rinpoche’s website to donate via PAYPAL, and send a copy of the receipt to us so that we can track your donation. Please note that Paypal do charge a service charge on all donations.
http://knamdrol.org/ManjushriEducationalProject.html
Thank you and may you be well and happy.