Author: Stella Deetjen

A milestone: The first Back to Life hospital

Back to Life completes the first hospital in the association’s history – a network of 19 birthing centers and a mother and child hospital is created. In August 2022, Back to Life received approval for a major project that had never been seen before in our history: the construction and establishment of a mother and child hospital for the Karnali region, the poorest province in Nepal. Although we have already been able to build, set up and operate 15 birthing centers in Mugu over the last ten years and have started building four more, a hospital building of this size is new territory...

The first heart clinic in Karnali

The FirstHeart Clinicin Karnali Die erste Herzklinik in Karnali A lifesaver for countless affected: Back to Life establishes a cardiology department in the provincial hospital of Karnali. Die Rettung für unzählige Betroffene: Back to Life richtet eine kardiologische Abteilung im Provinzkrankenhaus von Karnali ein. Our Heartfelt Concern Unsere Herzensangelegenheit The Inauguration The Immense Need for Cardiological Care Access to basic health care is not just a fundamental human right but also part of the UN’s Agenda 2030 goals. To move a step closer to achieving these,...

Home at last!

Finally Home! The deaf children of Mugu now live in their new school dormitory. For 17 deaf girls and boys in the remote region of Mugu, it was the beginning of a new life: In June 2022, they moved happily into the recently completed dormitory. With the new building in Gamgadhi, Back to Life not only provided the children with a comfortable and safe home but also the opportunity for a good education. Thus, the children have the chance to lead a self-determined life in the future, despite their physical limitations. Deaf children in Nepal are often particularly disadvantaged and receive little...

Now the boy can go his way

14 February 2023
Stella Deetjen
Uncategorized

When Sanjaya Rokaya was born in the mountains of Mugu in early October 2018, his right leg was deformed. For the parents, a world collapsed. In the remote mountain region, they had no access to medical help and the shamans waved them off, certain that they could not heal the boy. While he was still small, he could crawl and his parents could carry him, but what would happen to him later? Because especially in the mountainous regions of Nepal, a disability means that people can neither lead a normal life nor receive the support they urgently need. The Rokayas are poor, living with 8 people...

The Bärbel Schäfer interview with Stella

30 January 2023
Stella Deetjen
Uncategorized

25 years of Back to Life, dear Stella. With what feelings do you look back? It seems to me that all the emotions of the human scale were there, I think that’s enough for several lifetimes. Today I live in the here and now, I am happy with what I have achieved. Nevertheless, I would rather look ahead and make a difference with Back to Life for the people in Nepal, one of the poorest countries in the world. Success, change often comes with small steps – with which project in Nepal were you impatient and thought, we’ll never make it? I...

My bumpy road to deceleration

24 January 2023
Stella Deetjen
Travel Diaries

During my 16-day journey through the mountainous region of Mugu, I experienced deceleration like never before: no cell phone reception, no power for the laptop, no news about Corona, the Ukraine war or the looming climate crisis, no Netflix or social media either, and instead of traffic jams on overcrowded roads, there are dirt roads on which resistant jeeps move at a maximum of 10km/hour, defying seemingly insurmountable landslides and demanding everything from man and machine. Sunrise and sunset determine the rhythm of the day. Already the journey to the mountain region is an adventure....

In conversation with Dikendra Dhakal and Achyut Paudel

18 December 2022
Stella Deetjen
Uncategorized

Dikendra Dhakal (Program Director Back to Life Nepal) and Achyut Paudel (Finance Director Back to Life Nepal) have been by Stella’s side since the first minute. We look back at the last few years. How did you meet Stella, whom you call Tara in Nepal, and what made you trust her – as a stranger in your country? A: In 2008, we were introduced to each other. Tara already had the idea to help in Mugu and so we traveled there together, got an overview and joined forces. Shortly after, we started our first projects. D: We had a lot of conversations with Tara and...

In memory of Mikhail Gorbachev

31 August 2022
Stella Deetjen
Uncategorized

When I learned of Mikhail Gorbachev’s death today, the news took me back to 2006, when I was able to meet him in person. Mikhail Gorbachev presented me with the “Women’s World Award of Hope” in New York. That was a very special moment in my life to meet this man who made history and was a Nobel Peace Prize winner. His charisma and presence are vivid in my memory. My condolences go out to his loved ones. I have lit a candle in memory of him. Namaste, Stella

Killer in the Kitchen

Madhav P. Bhatta, Professor of Epidemiology and Global Health at Kent State University in the USA, was born and raised in a rural mountain village in Baitadi district in far western Nepal. Madhav Bhatta received his Master of Public Health (Epidemiology and Global Health) from the University of Pennsylvania and earned his PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA. Why open fire should stay outside When our immediate neighbors light their backyard wood burning firepit to enjoy cool Ohio autumn evenings with a sip of wine and good company, I sequester myself...

Birthcenters for Mugu Nepal

Stella Deetjen tells the story of Sushila, who made building birth centres Back to Life’s core mission. Without this encounter we would probably not have built our 15 birth centres. When I first came to Loharbada village in 2009, I wanted to learn as much as I could about the daily lives of the women. It was the beginning of our projects in Mugu. Sushila immediately besieged me and never stopped talking. We found out that we are almost the same age, both are mothers and she let me share her hard everyday life. From fetching water, the hard work in the fields, her meagre home without...

Learning by playing

31 December 2021
Stella Deetjen
Uncategorized

School uniforms, warm clothes and school supplies mean a lot to needy children, but not everything. This is one reason why we at Back to Life also expand and build schools, construct sanitary facilities, equip classrooms, set up libraries and train teachers. Because one thing is certain: education is important! But emotional education also plays a big role. Our commitment to this: playgrounds. First! Rupkala, a first grader, is ready for school in the morning before breakfast is prepared. But only since the playground was built at the school. “I love bobbing, sliding and swinging,...

A school time full of experiments

31 December 2021
Stella Deetjen
Uncategorized

Back to Life sets up a student lab Thakaltar School in Chitwan offers education from kindergarten to grade 10 and soon up to high school graduation. This is a rarity in a rural, poor area like this and therefore needs special support. Back to Life is a long-time partner of Thakaltar School. We have been working there since 2015, working with the community to transform a poorly equipped village school destroyed by the 2015 earthquakes into one of the best rural schools in the district. In March, it was time to move on to the next chapter for the school. Back to Life has established a student...

There are two winters in Nepal

31 December 2021
Stella Deetjen
Uncategorized

Hemanta & Shishir Nepal has 6 seasons to offer Once you have been to Nepal, you will probably never forget the country. It’s wonderful. The nature is incomparable from the lowlands in the south, the Terai, which is only 70 meters above sea level, to the highlands in the north, which include Mount Everest as the highest point in the world. The altitude rises slowly, making Nepal an extremely geographically diverse country. The diversity is also reflected in the six seasons:– Winter: Shishir– Spring: Basanta– dry summer: Grishma– Late summer with monsoon...

In focus: the earthquakes in 2015

On April 25, 2015, Nepal was hit by a severe earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 – the epicenter was only 80 km from the capital Kathmandu. Devastating tremors raged for 90 seconds. People ran outside in panic. Houses, roofs, stairs and walls collapsed. Power cables, masts, water tanks and advertising signs became lethal projectiles. There were landslides in many places. Countless schools, historic buildings and temples as well as roads, bridges and other infrastructure were destroyed. The force of the plate shift was so strong that Kathmandu was shifted three meters to the south. It...

Mangal Rokaya reinvents itself

A self-determined life despite polio thanks to income support: The history of Mangal Mangal Rokaya, a now 28-year-old young man from the remote mountainous region of Mugu in Nepal, has a remarkable story to tell. As a young child, Mangal contracted polio, a disease his family did not recognize until years later. However, the illness did not prevent him from attending school. Until the 10th grade, he was carried on his back by a family member every day, until the way to the higher secondary school became too far and he therefore had to drop out of school....

Good and cheap solution – the clay oven

In some areas of Chitwan, many families only settled down a few generations ago. Before that they lived as hunters and gatherers in the forests that now form the ‘Chitwan National Park’. With the opening of the national park in 1973, families had to give way and get used to a new lifestyle in the hills outside the park. They have always used open wood fires for cooking and have continued to do so to this day, as other fuels such as gas or kerosene are unaffordable. The women, because collecting wood is women’s work, often have to walk long distances in order to carry the...

In conversation with Rup from Mugu

Educated – Agricultural Experts for Mugu Our measures for agricultural development in Mugu, with which we want to give the residents the opportunity to sustainably improve their income situation. One of the long-term measures is to give young Mugu men an agricultural education. After completing their training, these young agricultural experts return to their villages and share their knowledge with the locals in order to achieve the greatest possible multiplier effects. Rup Bahadur is one of them and has completed the 15-month training as a “junior agricultural technician” at a state...

The future on four legs

Goat breeding as a new source of income In our project villages in Chitwan, southern Nepal, the people would like to make a living from farming. They plant vegetables, fruits and cereals for their own needs, but the arable land is usually much too small and the yield is not enough to feed the family. Since most of the residents have no other income opportunities, they walk through the neighboring villages every day to offer their labor as day laborers on the surrounding construction sites or on the market. Often, however, they return home empty-handed as there is not a job for everyone. The...

Never dangerous again

The power of the sun protects people and nature A few weeks ago, before the onset of winter in the Mugu mountains, we returned to the small village of Kimri. The project visit was originally planned for spring, but due to the corona crisis we had to postpone our plans to autumn 2020. Good timing, because now the promised solar lighting systems were produced and could be installed by our employees. New attitude towards life When our colleagues approached the village after a two-day walk, they could already see Kimri’s stone houses from some distance, the sun was shining and the colourful...

Kimri on fire

From emergency aid to our largest construction project FIRE! When this call resounds in a remote mountain village, it is clear that it can quickly turn into a catastrophe. It was the same in May 2018 in Kimri, a mountain village in Mugu. A domestic fireplace for cooking turned into a major fire that completely destroyed 19 houses within one day, stole the families’ already meager belongings and burned irreplaceable artefacts of their religious lama culture – some centuries old. 112 people – old people, young people, parents, children, from now on they were all faced with...