Another review from someone who received the book for Xmas

:::Thanks to Nel Cardinal for her lovely comments about the book:::

"really wanted to thank you for the book of Welcome to my Yard, i understand what you have said in the book, the respect you showed them was blessed, the photography is stunningly beautiful and i found myself, inspired, moved and spiritually in prayer for all those of this earth that are mis-understood and not given the respect and love that they deserve. I recieved this book as a christmas gift from my friend, Naomi, and it will be treasured dearly.

Thank you for the smiling faces and the quick glance of culture and peace that is amoungst these people.

Bless you, "

Nel

If you have a copy of the book please send us your thoughts. We also are looking fro more photos to join our barefoot mosiac on our blog

WTMY Team

What the kids had to say

money matters!!!

We always knew what we wanted to do with this project. We wanted to give the children’s artwork justice. We wanted people to have the opportunity to see the art they created. We achieved this by publishing the Welcome To My Yard book and by hosting the exhibition. We also wanted to ensure that any profits that we made go back to the photographers and children in similar situations so that it may support their future however small the contribution.

"We are over the moon to tell people that the book sales and profits from the exhibition have so far amounted to almost £1,000! We can’t thank everyone enough for buying the children and young people's work. " Sarah WTMY

As a team we have spent a lot of time thinking about how we should spend the profits to make the best possible use of them. We wanted to ensure that the money goes direct to the people supporting these children wherever possible. Some of the young people have now completed their basic education, some of the young people living on the streets are no longer in the places where they used to be and few people know what has happened to them.

We also wanted to ensure that both collections receive revenue, so we have been trying to eek out what we have between the ex child labour children at CWARDS school and the young people on the street.

What was clear to us was that some of the money should go direct to CWARDS so that a few more children could get the same education opportunities as the photographers of collection one. We also felt that it was better to pay for less children to complete the required 2 years than a larger amount completing just one academic year leaving CWARDS to find funding elsewhere.

That left how we support the street children which has been as complex to answer as is their lives on the street. There are no easy solutions or quick fixes and some people would be shocked to know that many of the young people would choose to continue on the streets if given a choice. We don’t intend to throw money at a situation and hope it resolves itself. This project has always been short term in the hope that people affected by Welcome To My Yard will go on to do inspirational things created from nothing as did the children. Our primary objective has been to promote their work with dignity and respect and we want to continue doing this.
We decided to try and talk with the children themselves...who better?

Street children questionnaires are attached to the next post (had a technical glitch putting them in this post!)

Exhibition News

Congratulations to the Welcome To My Yard Team and to everyone who came along to join in. the exhibition. The night was a huge success and we had so much fun putting it on for everyone. We got so much great feedback from people about the work, listened to the sounds of Nepal followed by DJ Dou Dou Malicious, had the opportunity to make Nepali flags and traditional Nepalese handmade paper, visit our Durbar Square Cinema and eat endless momos from our momo stall. Check out the the 2 photo slideshows of the making and of the night to see a glimpse how we went though they really don't do the night justice.

In a big way we have already acheived our goal, we have put together an amazing photography book and created an art exhibition to showcase this stunning work...done! However, not satisfied to simply bring this work from the children in Kathmandu to you, we thought that we could also raise some money for them too.

Have a look at our fundraising thermometer to see what we have been aiming for. We can proudly tell you that thanks to the huge efforts of everyone involved we are two thirds of our way to our goal.

Therefore we are offering you an exlusive deal to get ourselves to the top

****We have bulk bought some books from Lulu.com so we can offer them to you at a great price of £10 (plus p&p) instead of the usual £18.99 (plus p&p)***

please email barefootjasmine@googlemail.com to make your order while stocks last!

Once again thanks to everyone who've shown that great people can make anything happen.

Look out for the following highlights on the blog

***EXCLUSIVE - Welcome To My Yard (Collection One) and Walk With Me (Collection Two) has been released on the blog. We simply asked that you put on some head phones, turn off the lights and let yourself be taken round their yards.
(Unfortunately the quality of the images have been reduced in order to play on the web)

***BAREFOOT MOSIAC- have you seen your photo?? Have you bought the book? Send you pic to us and we'll add it to the many people who are showing their support.

***KATHMANDU NEWS. Greg and his daughter Jessie have now arrived in Kathmandu and will be meeting with CWARDS and the kids soon. Keep checking in to hear more news.

*** MORE ON THE WAY

We'll be seeing you around our yard!

Invitation to the exhibition of welcome to my yard

Greg leaving for Kathmandu soon!

Hi Everybody! Firstly I'd like to thank Sarah and the children of 'Welcome to My Yard' for their making the project the sucess it has been thus far. I spent some time in Nepal in 2000 and I am thrilled to be going back this Easter with my daughter. It is exciting be able to show such a wonderful country as Nepal to my daughter but also to do something in return for some of the less fortunate children of Nepal. It is hard not to be touched in some way by the beauty of Nepal, whether it be the mountains, the beautiful countryside, it's profound spirituality or the smiles on the peoples faces. Your support for this cause is very much appeciated and I very happy to be returning to Nepal with your donations directly to the children in the photographs in your book

Welcome to our yard!..whats on our website

Saludos! Thanks for checking us out. Over the course of the next few weeks we will be adding more stuff so please keep checking in and following this journey with us.

Ok, strictly speaking this is a blog but what do you want for free?! This way we get to interact with you guys out there (yes you) who will be the people making this project a success...yay!

What's going to be on this site? I've include a few highlights for you below.

Link to www.lulu.com

There are links directly to the lulu site where you can buy Welcome To My Yard. Remember that this book is not for profit and every penny has gone to the publication cost and the remainder goes into the fund-raising pot. Not a bean will be spilled on our part!

Preview the book

At the bottom of the page we have added a small preview of some of the images from Welcome To My Yard. You can also see these images on the main Lulu page where the book is available to buy.

We are all barefoot artists, join our photobook mosaic.

In an effort to keep this project creative from start to finish we think that even the advertisement of Welcome To My Yard should be part of this creative process. Every time we have put up a advert for the book we have been taking a photo of the noticeboard or wall where its gone. We are asking that as many people as possible who receive the book send us a picture of them with it or of the book in an interesting place and we'll add it to our mosaic to build a global barefoot artist picture.

send your photo to barefootjasmine@googlemail.com

The Kathmandu countdown

Shortly we will be telling you all about our campaign to get Greg to Kathmandu. Well, he is technically going already so we thought we'd save our carbon footprint to send our donations and books with him. Greg will be leaving with his daughter to Kathmandu in April 2010. We've started a countdown clock and have got precisely 124 days (from the point of writing this) to make this creative project even more of a success and selling as many books as possible.

Facebook friends

You can become a facebook friend so your lovely face will appear on our blog! This will also help us make more friends out there and get the book known by others..so get facebooking.

Tweet this!

You can tweet our page and if anyone knows what that is then please let us know too!

We'll be seeing you around our yard.

Sarah at the Welcome To My Yard Project