The Hope For Education – Helga’s School (Nepal, 2019)
It is hard to comprehend a life outside the comfort of our first-world walls. The struggles men, women, and children have to endure for survival is hard to fathom in a society that is so privileged. Basic human rights such as education, clean water, enough food and a safe environment are something we all take for granted. In November 2019, I had the opportunity to observe the life of civilians in Nepal, when having the honor to be part of the opening of Helga’s School.
In 1970, cultural Architect, Milan Kovač, began working at UNESCO Institute ARISBR (Asian Regional Institute for Schools) in Colombo. Since then, he has taken an interest in Nepal and its architecture, visiting it several times before his most recent project. After the devastating 2015 earthquake that killed over 9,000 people and destroyed or severely damaged more than 600,000 structures in Kathmandu and nearby towns (P. Rafferty, n.d.), the nation was in disarray. Financially, the country was in ruins. According to an Australian news publication The Guardian, the cost of all the total damages in Nepal estimated to be equivalent to £7.8 billion (Burke and Rauniyar, 2015). This presented a large financial toll on the already struggling nation having to rebuild several parts of their country.
Despite previous earthquakes, the engineering of buildings in Nepal are not suitable to withstand the disastrous and unpredictable quakes. It was then that the concept of Milan Kovač’s next project was initiated, and he and his family begun the intention to build a prototype for an earthquake resistant building to school 100 children. This project was designed in cooperation with the University of Ljubljana, Structure Department for Earthquake resistant buildings and funded by his son, Vimal Kovač.
In July 2015, Milan and his youngest daughter, Tanja Hillenberg Kovač, returned to assist in selecting a site for the school. The decision fell on BirtaDeurali, a small village five hours South East of Kathmandu. With Mr. Kovač’s designs set in place, the elements of the building and furniture were sent by ship to Kolkata and from there, by truck to Nepal. Obtaining the permission to import the components to Nepal was difficult, delaying the process further. The assistance of Khummbi-ila, Voyage Tours & Travels granted the approval needed and with this support, the project was underway. Two teams from Slovenia were sent to the site in BirtaDeurali, alongside the continual support, engagement, and active assistance of the local community to construct the main building. The building consisted of two large classrooms divided by a smaller room that can be utilised as an office for the headmaster of the school. In addition to the main building, the toilet complex design was created by a team of Australian students in the Commercial Design Department of Brisbane’s Torrens University. This was innovated in participation of an internal competition arranged by Kovač’s daughter, Nina Starkey. These two classrooms were intended to educate 100 pupils but had the number increased to 160 primary school students by the time the school was handed over to the people of BirtaDeurali on the 22nd of November 2019.
“With sorrow, the news of the devastating earthquake in the months of April and May 2015 reached me and my family. I decided to build a school for 100 children in Nepal in memory of my late wife and the mother of my children, Helga Hillenberg Kovač”.
A village barely having four walls to create a home, clean water to drink or enough food to eat now have the hope for education thanks to Milan Kovač, his family and his late wife’s inspiration and legacy. The architectural design of Helga’s School is the foundation to pass on to other engineers and architects in Nepal, inspiring to continue the construction of suitable and sustainable buildings to withstand the devastating earthquakes that are sure to return. It is Mr. Kovač’s wish that by building more appropriate and stable infrastructure, the level of destruction that followed from the April 2015 earthquakes will no longer be a threat.
