Grampians appeal helps earthquake affected village

Adam Merrick leading the effort to build a community centre and restore water to the town of Aapghari.

The Nepal earthquake killed nearly 9,000 people and injured nearly 22,000 in April last year.

Mr Merrick is part of the Aapghari Open Heart Appeal aims to raise $25,000 to for the new community centre.

He said the appeal was made up of seasoned travellers to Nepal, who had already raised $21,000 and helped start work on the centre.

“The whole village was pretty badly devastated by the earthwork,”he said.

We did a fact finding mission over there and spoke with a mother’s group in the village to find out if they would like us to help and what they might need.

“The mother’s group told us they really wanted a community centre.”

Mr Merrick said the centre would allow for the community to access education, provide a new toilet and kitchen and also a new birthing centre for mothers.

The town does not have a birthing centre at the moment, while many of the children finish their education in primary school.

Everyone involved in supporting the appeal pays for their own flights, accommodation and food when they visit Aapghari.

Mr Merrick said this meant every dollar raised went into the project to build the centre.

“We made a commitment to the village to raise funds for the community centre,” he said.

“This project would be ongoing from the good people of south-west Victoria to the good people of Nepal.

“We thought we wanted to do something substantial for the community.”

Work on the building’s structure has already started, however there is a lot more which still needs to be done, including fitting out the interior.

Mr Merrick said the project needed raise another $4000 to be comleted.

He said donations of any amount can be made through crowd funding website www.chuffed.org.