To every Nepali it may concern,

NAMASTE!

My name is Sandra Wijnveldt, I am from Holland, and last winter my husband, my 9 year old daughter and myself worked in Nepal as volunteers. During our stay we made a small documentary video about the fantastic organization we worked with. The organization is called FoST (Foundation of Sustainable Technologies) and is a Nepalese organization, founded by a Nepalese man called Sanu Kaji Shrestha and it is totally run by Nepalese volunteers.

Foundation for Sustainable Technologies (FoST) is a non-profit non-governmental organization established in April 2002 under the Social Service Act 2034 of His Majesty's Government of Nepal. FoST was the brainchild of Sanu Kaji Shrestha - a retired official at the World Bank and solar energy hobbyist. He started this hobby since 1995 when there was a shortage of cooking gas in Kathmandu, Sanu Kaji found himself forced to take three days off from work to stand in long queues for fuel. It was then he realized the extent of Nepal's dependence and started seriously researching ways to bring sustainable domestic sources of energy to his country. In 2001, Sanu Kaji retired from the World Bank to work full time to fulfill this goal.

Over the last months a lot has happened for FoST. Just look at the many activities on their website (http://www.fost-nepal.org/)!

Due to their hard work, success and dedication to help and educate poor communities, I am very pleased to inform you that FoST are among the 12 finalists for the World Challenge 2007!

The World Challenge is a global competition and was set up three years ago by the BBC World, Newsweek and Shell to recognize the innovators of this world. The jury of the World Challenge has chosen FoST as one of the dozen finalists to be filmed for the 2007 series. The popular programmes will be shown on BBC World and featured in Newsweek from October 2007. Over 940 nominations were received which makes reaching the final 12 a great achievement for FoST!

All 12 finalists are great, I admit, but we personally know that FoST is trustworthy and helping many different causes using renewable energy / sustainable technologies.

The 15 minute documentary film on FoST activities will be released on the BBC World on Saturday 3rd November 2007 and will be repeated as follows:

3rd November, 2007 Saturday:
0930 GMT

4th November, 2007 Sunday: (not America or the Middle East)
0330 GMT
1330 GMT
1830 GMT

6th November, 2007 Tuesday:
1830 GMT

I would like to kindly ask you to spare a minute to vote for FoST to win the prestigious recognition in this global contest. Voting will be opened on 6th October and will be closed on 16th November 2007.

To vote please go to: http://www.theworldchallenge.co.uk/cooking.php (listed under Cooking Without Gas)

I really hope you could also forward this email to your contacts so that we could get more votes for FoST.

Your vote and your support is highly valued, because by reaching the top-3, it will help FoST tremendously to further sharpen their efforts in Nepal to protect the beautiful, but fragile environment, in improving the quality of life of the poor women, the rural communities, the handicapped, the leprosy, the mentally retarded and the orphan groups by empowering them through sustainable technologies.

If you want more info about FoST or see our personal video please go to: www.gorpproductions.com or go to www.fost-nepal.org We also have a photo gallery on our gorpproductions website.

Thank you very much for your support.

Warm regards,

Sandra Wijnveldt