Royal Mountain Travel Magazine Royal Mountain Travel Magazine Issue 1 | Page 42

Kiran Namaste

© RMT

“Just call me “It”,” says Iet J. Schilder-Verboom. Iet is a tall lanky lady with reddish hair. She is
from the Netherlands where she runs a small clinic as a psychologist. “I first came to Nepal some
18 years ago,” she recalls. That was when her husband (“who is a very active man”) had asked her
to come pick him up from Kathmandu, which was where he had ended up after a mountain bike
ride from Lhasa, “I came back the next year with my children (two sons) and somehow, felt very
attached to the place. I spent my time sightseeing and encountered many street children here.”

Iet’s interest in street children was not just a happenstance. She
discloses, “My childhood was spent in many different countries
since my father, an engineer, was constantly on the move. This
resulted in my feeling of rootlessness.” Obviously, Iet had the
wings, but not the roots, two things that are supposed to be very
important in a child’s life according to Goethe. Perhaps this was
the reason she empathized so with the street children she saw
in Kathmandu’s streets. This empathy remained with her after
returning home. For the next two years, she contemplated on
the same. “I wanted to travel not as a rich westerner but as one
with some purpose,”she says.“My husband advised me not to be
swayed by my emotions but to be more practical in making any
future plans.”
She reveals how, one fine day, a project was formed in her mind.
She knew what she had to do. ”I came back to Kathmandu and
establishedKiranNamaste,ahomeforsinglewomen,theirchildren
as well as other street kids. My aim was to help single women

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who had suffered much injustice and keep out of the streets as
many kids as possible,”she says.“Kiran means the sun’s rays,”she
explains,“and Namaste of course means, greetings. So, my home
is ‘greetings of the sun’s rays’.” She further elaborates, pointing
to the logo on her visiting card, “You see that boomerang like
curvature—that is Kiran Namaste giving a helping hand.The long
straightslashatthebottomistheroadaheadthatourbeneficiaries
have to take for themselves after their stint with us.”
Talking more about the project, Iet says, “In the beginning,
we took on five single mothers and 13 children. Currently ]