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Center for Global Change · since 2008 · Nepal, Vietnam, Costa Rica, Haiti

We help children and families build lives that last.

Since 2008 we have helped raise children in Nepal, brought doctors and dentists to villages in Nepal, Vietnam and Costa Rica, put roofs on homes in Chitwan and built housing in Haiti, and fed thousands in Bhaktapur after the 2015 earthquake. Two founders, no overhead, and every dollar at work.

What we doOur story

Film: Nepal, with the children of Rainbow House. We have stood with them for eighteen years.

What we do

Four kinds of work, in four countries, for eighteen years.

What we have done

Year by year, in four countries.

  1. May 2008The Center for Global Change is founded after the crash.
  2. June 2009Aaron's first trip. A building project in Chitwan putting tin roofs on homes, and a visit to Rainbow House, the children's home built by Daniel Nassie and Rescue Humanity, where the kids take him in.
  3. December 2009Debbie's first trip. She walks through the gate at Rainbow House to a hand painted banner: Debbie ma'am, will you please be our mom? From then on we help expand and fund the home: school, food, a doctor, a roof. The same trip: a medical camp in Jiri and Those, and the trek to Everest base camp.
  4. October 2010A three day medical and dental camp in Ratnapur, Syanja, with the Vanetik Foundation and Rescue Humanity.
  5. April 2011The IRS recognizes the Center for Global Change as a 501(c)(3) public charity.
  6. November 2011Nine days of trekking with medical camps in Thulo Syabru, Thambuchet and Tatopani, the valley the flood would hit fifteen years later.
  7. April 2015After the earthquake we raised the money and funded the Unatti Foundation to feed more than 3,500 people in Bhaktapur, 3,000 pounds of rice at a time, when nobody else had come.
  8. May 2015Our first medical camp outside Nepal, in Vietnam. The same work, a new country.
  9. March 2018One house built by hand in an inland village in Haiti.
  10. October 2023A medical camp in Costa Rica, our most recent, and the third country we have run camps in.
  11. August 2026A flood on the Nepal Tibet border takes homes and family members from people we have known for years.
  12. October 2026Aaron and Debbie take on the MDS Trek Morocco, 120 km each across the Sahara, to raise the money for the rebuild.
  13. March 2027Back to Nepal with volunteers to rebuild a family home. Photos, costs and the day the family moves in, posted here.

Dates come from Aaron and Debbie's records and the IRS. Patient counts by camp will be posted when they are right.

The film

Hear it from the kids themselves.

Five minutes. Made with the children of Rainbow House, who are grown now. They tell it better than we ever could.

Eighteen years, in our own photos.

Camps, homes and the children we have helped raise. Every frame is ours, shot in Nepal between 2009 and 2018. Vietnam, Costa Rica and Haiti are being scanned.

The Rainbow House kids on the temple lions, Bhaktapur, 2013.
The Rainbow House kids on the temple lions, Bhaktapur, 2013.
The whole home on a day out in Durbar Square, Bhaktapur, 2013.
The whole home on a day out in Durbar Square, Bhaktapur, 2013.
A volunteer's tent at sunrise above Ratnapur, October 2010. The team sleeps where the camp is.
A volunteer's tent at sunrise above Ratnapur, October 2010. The team sleeps where the camp is.
The banner says who paid: the Vanetik Foundation camp, Ratnapur, Syanja, October 27 to 29, 2010.
The banner says who paid: the Vanetik Foundation camp, Ratnapur, Syanja, October 27 to 29, 2010.
Thank you, spelled out one letter per child.
Thank you, spelled out one letter per child.
The line on the first morning of a camp. Nobody is turned away.
The line on the first morning of a camp. Nobody is turned away.
A check-up on the road. The clinic is wherever the doctor is standing.
A check-up on the road. The clinic is wherever the doctor is standing.
A village classroom turned dental surgery for three days.
A village classroom turned dental surgery for three days.
Registration under the tree: every patient gets a card, every card gets a name.
Registration under the tree: every patient gets a card, every card gets a name.
Waiting their turn. The queue is long, and it moves.
Waiting their turn. The queue is long, and it moves.
The welcome: a marigold garland and a scarf for every volunteer. Ratnapur, 2010.
The welcome: a marigold garland and a scarf for every volunteer. Ratnapur, 2010.
Clean shirts handed down from the bus.
Clean shirts handed down from the bus.
The pharmacy. Every bottle of it was carried in, then sorted on a classroom table.
The pharmacy. Every bottle of it was carried in, then sorted on a classroom table.
Aaron printing a photo for the kids. For most of them it was the first picture of themselves they had ever seen.
Aaron printing a photo for the kids. For most of them it was the first picture of themselves they had ever seen.
The women of the village, in the queue, dressed for the occasion.
The women of the village, in the queue, dressed for the occasion.
The C4GC flag and the bus that brought the team as far as the road goes.
The C4GC flag and the bus that brought the team as far as the road goes.
The children of Rainbow House holding up a hand painted thank you signThe Rainbow House classroom in 2013The medical camp banner in Ratnapur, Syanja, October 2010

Your guide

We know what it is to lose everything.

In 2008 the crash took everything we had built. A friend sent Aaron to Nepal to see real hardship, and the children of Rainbow House took us in. When Debbie walked through the gate they were holding a banner they had painted by hand: Debbie ma'am, will you please be our mom?

Eighteen years later we are still there. Center for Global Change has been a US 501(c)(3) since 2008, and in all that time we have never sent a dollar we could not account for.

Every cent you give goes to Nepal. We pay the rest ourselves, and always have.

Read the whole story

Journal

The latest from the road.

All posts

Nepal, March 12 to April 4, 2027

Come and build with us.

We go back to Nepal from March 12 to April 4 to build one multi-level home for several families, about $30,000 in materials and local labor. Come for a week or the whole time. No building skills needed, no age limit, families welcome, and there is time for Pokhara, Kathmandu and Chitwan between build days.

Volunteers pay their own flights plus a trip fee for transport, lodging and food in Nepal; the fee is being set. Donations go into the home, never into anyone's trip.

Keep in touch with the work.

A note when something happens in Nepal, the photos from the rebuild in March, and nothing else.