Bridim Village Rebuilding
BRIDIM VILLAGE REBUILDING
The Bridim community is a four hour walk from the nearest road, located in Langtang National Park at an altitude of 2,200m. Dolma Foundation has worked with this community for 13 years providing education, health, and sustainable income opportunities to the residents and surrounding community. The community settled there over 350 years ago, and structures were built in traditional Tibetan style. These dry-stone buildings, including community hall, monastery, health clinic, and school were all damaged or destroyed by the earthquake.
During the monsoon, families and Dolma volunteers stayed in temporary shelters. We spent the monsoon season conducting a detailed damage assessment of the village and developing an earthquake resilient model to rebuild Bridim. The engineering team, headed by Architect Debesh Bhattarai designed a safer building model that is compliant with the national building code and preserves the cultural and architectural beauty of Bridim.
The local community have contributed significant energy and effort to the rebuilding work. The villagers demolished the collapsed community building and tirelessly carried required supplies to the village by hand.Dolma Ecotourism (a non-profit ecotourism project run by Dolma Foundation) conducted several rebuilding trips to Bridim with foreign volunteers (inc. Dolma Trustee David Grigson) to help the villagers rebuild while also bringing much needed income and a psychological uplift to the community. With a training programme facilitated by the engineers, and construction support from skilled labourers from nearby villagers, Bridim now has a new community center. The building was completed in November and handed over to the community who hosted the rebuilding team with great music and celebration.
The rebuilding team has now started rebuilding the houses. We have completed rebuilding and retrofitting of 24 houses, 11 houses are upto Sill level, 8 houses are under-construction, and 15 houses to begin construction soon.
The Bridim community is a four hour walk from the nearest road, located in Langtang National Park at an altitude of 2,200m. Dolma Foundation has worked with this community for 13 years providing education, health, and sustainable income opportunities to the residents and surrounding community. The community settled there over 350 years ago, and structures were built in traditional Tibetan style. These dry-stone buildings, including community hall, monastery, health clinic, and school were all damaged or destroyed by the earthquake.
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| Bridim Village after the Earthquake | Meeting with Community members |
During the monsoon, families and Dolma volunteers stayed in temporary shelters. We spent the monsoon season conducting a detailed damage assessment of the village and developing an earthquake resilient model to rebuild Bridim. The engineering team, headed by Architect Debesh Bhattarai designed a safer building model that is compliant with the national building code and preserves the cultural and architectural beauty of Bridim.
The local community have contributed significant energy and effort to the rebuilding work. The villagers demolished the collapsed community building and tirelessly carried required supplies to the village by hand.Dolma Ecotourism (a non-profit ecotourism project run by Dolma Foundation) conducted several rebuilding trips to Bridim with foreign volunteers (inc. Dolma Trustee David Grigson) to help the villagers rebuild while also bringing much needed income and a psychological uplift to the community. With a training programme facilitated by the engineers, and construction support from skilled labourers from nearby villagers, Bridim now has a new community center. The building was completed in November and handed over to the community who hosted the rebuilding team with great music and celebration.
The rebuilding team has now started rebuilding the houses. We have completed rebuilding and retrofitting of 24 houses, 11 houses are upto Sill level, 8 houses are under-construction, and 15 houses to begin construction soon.
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