Bhaktapur, April 2015: feeding a town with the Unatti Foundation
Aaron and Debbie Cuha, October 6, 2026. 1 min read.
On April 25, 2015 a magnitude 7.8 earthquake hit Nepal. Bhaktapur, the old city east of Kathmandu where our kids had walked the temple squares two years earlier, was badly damaged. In the first days nobody came.
Who did the work
The Unatti Foundation did. It is a children's home for girls in Bhaktapur, one of the sister homes we support, run on the ground by its executive director, Ramesh Pradhananga. Within days of the earthquake the Unatti girls and staff were cooking for the neighbourhood from their own kitchen, and the foundation was feeding more than 3,500 people. They secured 3,000 pounds of rice, with another 3,000 pounds on the way.
Ramesh said at the time that no one had come to help, "not even the government". People magazine covered the girls cooking for survivors: Nepal earthquake: Unatti Foundation girls cook for survivors in Kathmandu.
What we did
We raised the money and sent it to Unatti to buy the rice and keep the kitchen going. That is the honest division of labour, and it is how we work: the people on the ground know what is needed and do it, and we make sure the money is there before anyone else turns up.
Why it matters now
The same is true in 2026. After the August flood the families we know need a roof before the next monsoon, and in March we go back to help build one. If you have ever wondered what a gift to us turns into, Bhaktapur in 2015 is the answer: rice, a kitchen, and thousands of people fed while the rest of the world was still reading the news.