Vicki Sherpa,
a small biography

 

Victoria Subirana (known as Vicki Sherpa) has dedicated her life to fight tirelessly against the social inequality which affects the children, the underprivileged, the physically impaired and the women of Nepal. Victoria has used education as a tool to fight against these inequalities and create social change. The projects that she has carried out have benefited a community of more than 3.000 thousand.

Vicki Sherpa was born and raised in Ripoll (Girona, 1959), where she went to school and took part in various youth and socially oriented activities. Later, she attended the University of Vic where studied a magister to become a teacher and then worked for ten years in the Diana School in Ripoll.

With the objective of acquiring as much knowledge as possible, in 1979 she began an intensive training process in the field of education. She attended various courses like the Decroly Pedagogic System in the Decrolyan School in Brussels and the Regio Emilia Method in various Italian schools.

She continued her training process in various European institutions; she took courses in special education, music and body language. She obtained her master's degree in "Curriculum and Teaching" from Michigan State University (USA).

Vicki's attraction for Nepal led her to visit the country for the first time in 1988. When she arrived in the capital, Katmandu, she was shocked by the poverty and the living conditions to which the population was exposed. With the voyage and especially with the street children's images engraved in her mind, she began thinking about starting an educational project for the underprivileged.

A year later she designed a working program and started learning Nepalese in Barcelona. Shortly afterwards she went again to Nepal to continue learning about the country's language and culture in the Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu.

In 1989 she founded the Dorgee School which received 32 refugee children from Tibet.

The Daleki School was born in 1993 with the objective of attending the social, intellectual and psychological needs of the most impoverished children in the community. It received 320 children from nursery up to preschool. The preparation of The Montessori Series of Books also started this year, more than 60 books for the three preschool cycles. With this methodology Victoria aims to teach the culture, history and traditions of Nepal, avoiding a western "invasion" of the educational system.

At the same time, the Vicki Sherpa's Friends Association started in Barcelona; its mission is to give economic support to the projects through school sponsoring.

In 1995 Vicki created the Non Formal Education Project with the goal of promoting literacy and basic education amongst children and adults who could not attend normal courses. It covers basic subjects such as mathematics, English and Nepalese.

In order to sustain the projects and to improve the living conditions of the families with no income, Vicki created the Family Project in 1998. The three main activities that it comprises are: training workshops for women, income generation through the sale of the handicrafts made in the workshops (the Vedfon family shop) and the micro-credits system.

In 1999, the first Primary Teacher's School was created in Nepal, it's aim is the improvement of the quality of the training the teachers receive; this way a complete and integral development of the children is promoted. The school was closed after the assassination of the King of Nepal in 2002, but nevertheless the training has continued through different programs. The project will be fully operational again in 2006 through a partnership between Eduqual and the universities of Zaragoza and Katmandu.

That same year Victoria opened the Reception Centre for children at risk. This project started with the arrival of Babita, a 7 year old girl with physical disabilities who was abandoned in a market in Katmandu. The centre provides housing, education and medical attention to 12 abandoned children. It also provides psychomotor activity classes with specialized professionals who help these children overcome their disabilities and thus, be able to enroll into normal schools.

In 2000, Vicki opened a second school, Catalunya, with the collaboration Catalonia's Autonomic Government (Generalitat de Catalunya) and Architects Without Borders. This is a primary school for 180 children located in Manamaiju, a rural area near the Nepalese capital.

The old Vicki Sherpa's Friends Association became The Vicki Sherpa Eduqual Foundation in 2002. This NGO finances the projects in Nepal. That same year Vicki published an autobiographical book: "Vicki Sherpa, A Teacher in Katmandu" (Aguilar, 2002), where she narrates her experiences as a teacher in this Asian country. She is now currently writing the second part of the book.

Victoria Subirana's work throughout the years has earned her prices and awards, both at national and international level:

Vicki is currently working in other projects to help the underprivileged. In Pakistan she is setting up a school for 25 children who suffered the 8th of October 2005 earthquake. In Bangladesh she is trying to implement her educational method in the rural area of Magura District. In Jhapa (Nepal), an area located 500 km east of Katmandu, she is working in training teachers as well as establishing a micro-credit system for the women. The projects in Bangladesh and Jhapa are being carried out with the collaboration of the ISBET Organization (International Society for Better Tomorrow), from Switzerland.

In July 2005, the educational method created by Vicki Sherpa was registered in the Intellectual Property Register under the title of "Transforming Pedagogy".