
About 2 van de 52
2 van de 52 is a charitable organisation aiming at improving education and hygiene for children in Haripur, Nepal. After a destructive earthquake in April 2015 Wijtze Velema and Bobby Regensburg decided that they wanted to help out the country. After raising funds, amongst others within the Dutch imaging industry, in 2016 they supported a couple of smaller projects in various regions and after about 10 days they ended up in Haripur. The living conditions in this area were so terrible that children would not stand a chance to work their way out of a life barely worth living. Illiteracy, child labour, high infant death rate, famine, the situation in Haripur was dreadful. Wijtze and Bobby then decided that Haripur would get their full focus as a development project. Initially they managed to get a school building built, get a few parents to work as full-time teachers and they got in touch with a highly dedicated social worker, Arbind Chaudhary, to monitor and manage the situation.
Back in The Netherlands they got in touch with one of the supporters, Rob Degreef, and together they decided to set up a foundation called 2 van de 52 (2 out of 52) , after the (minimum) number of weeks they want to spend supporting the kids in Haripur. The approach was, and always will be, that every donation will always 100% be used for the Indrapur school in Haripur. Therefore, no salary or bonus for the board, no paid fundraising “volunteers”, no unnecessary overhead cost, flights and accommodation paid out of our own pockets, every Euro will be well-spent. Improving the school and its facilities, the quality of education and hygiene will always be our priority. By now, we have achieved a lot which you can read in the blogs. The board and volunteers are in Haripur every year to lift education and hygiene to a higher level. All this is done together with Arbind, parents, teachers, elders, a befriended academy and local government.
To make one thing clear: We offer development cooperation, not just financial aid. We are not benefactors but we want to set up projects with the local population which enables their kids to study, so that later they might be able to socially and economically develop their own community.