A New Projection Room for Manasarovar School

One of the most practical “gifts” we will leave behind when we depart is the new projection room at Manasarovar!  So many donors supported my Nepal project, that we have some extra funds left over to spend.  We decided that a new LCD projector would be a good thing to bring to Nepal, and so we bought one before leaving California.  Our idea was to have movie nights to just excite and entertain the kids.  We would also use the projector for showing educational videos, and teaching in a more engaging style.

But we quickly found that a nice projector by itself is not at all functional.  Some classrooms have no electric outlets, and no one has a screen or blank white wall.  There are many nice windows for natural light, but that poses a problem for darkening a room during presentations. Daily unpredictable multi-hour blackouts, called “load shedding” here in Nepal, play havoc with electronic teaching. And the constant set-up and break down of equipment would have  driven us crazy hauling cords, laptops, powerstrips and the projector from room to room.

So we proposed, cleaned, customized, and have now COMPLETED a dedicated room for the projector!  There were old bird nests in all the window-screens, and years of grime to deal with. We had to locate and purchase an 8-foot wall-mount screen, and transport it across Kathmandu tied to the roof of a tiny taxi with twine…. Until a monsoon downpour began, and the screen would only fit inside if we drove with the tailgate propped open. We worked with a super-handy local electrician to get new multi-plug outlets installed in the room, complete with connections to both the normal power-supply and a portable generator. Dad helped measure and drill to install the screen. We bought power-strips, Bluetooth speakers, and installed old curtains to cover the remaining window.  A local shop owner, when he heard about our mission, re-wired and donated a pair of external speakers that plug directly into the wall outlet. Thanks Sushil!

It took a lot of effort, but the students are now absolutely thrilled when we say, “OK class, today we will go to the Projection Room!”  They leap to the door, and eagerly line up to march downstairs!  It gets pretty hot in there, with several devices plugged in and 35 steamy kids filling the floor… but it’s worth it. We’ll get a fan set up soon to move the stuffy air around.

We’ve already presented power-point slideshows on the Solar System, Eclipses, and the Seasons. Dad just did his weekly Wednesday “teacher talk” for the staff on Plate Tectonics and Earthquakes. The teachers asked so many questions, loved the colorful images and projected graphics, and were very happy to get some background on this pertinent subject!  We’ll share a watered-down version of that show with our students on Friday.


The school recently got a bunch of tablets donated, but they are rarely used due to power outages and lack of training. We did NOT want our donated projector to just sit around gathering dust like that. So another of our goals next week is to train the teachers on how to use the tablets, how to prepare presentations, and how to use the projection room once we are gone.

It’s all really exciting, and feels like a tangible user-friendly package that we will have provided for this wonderful school and its staff.