More paper for Momo Papers | Making A Difference

Volunteers at a stapling party.
You can save two trees from being cut down every year. Want to know how? Just reuse all unwanted papers with one side written. Rashil Palanchoke and Clement Kirsch are not just saving such paper but making exercise books out of them for students in village schools.

Five months ago, Rashil and Clement got together and decided to make good use of reusable papers. They began collecting them, and in two months were able to staple 800 20-page exercise books and distribute eight copies each to 100 students studying in Shree Himalayan Bhamalkot Primary School at Panchkhal.

The duo's campaign first received support from the Nepal Forum of Environmental Journalists, which gave them 5,000 sheets of reusable paper. These papers were sorted and compiled together by a group of volunteers whom Rashil and Clement managed to gather. They call their production Momo Papers.

"The name has nothing to do with momos," laughs Rashil, "We just wanted a name that was easy to remember." Momo papers works informally as they don't have an office or official documents. "We are volunteers and don't want to setup an office either," he adds, Rashil also plays the sarangi for Kutumba, a folk instrumental band.

The Momo Papers gang delivering exercise books.
Through word-of-mouth, different schools and colleges began to contribute to Momo Papers. Kantipur Engineering College gave 10,000 such sheets while Lincoln School invited them to collect stapled exercise books made out of such paper.

"The copies we make might not be used as exercise books but as rough notebooks," says Rashil. However, reusing paper is only one side of the story. The fun part of the project is the 'stapling party' as the volunteers call it. Once every month, they bring staplers and pins from home, sit on the floor at one of the volunteers' house, sort the paper, count, compile and staple them. There's no money involved but the volunteers generously bring pins and food to last until the party's over.

"These exercise books are very useful," says Rashil, "Since English taught in government schools is not up to standard, by reading whatever is printed in English on the used side, students could actually improve their English language skills." The Momo Papers project is growing popular as more public schools contact them for used-paper exercise books and the Momo Paper gang is working on it as they tell us their motto: 'Don't waste papers, reuse them. If you can't do that, call Momo Papers'.

Join the gang
Do you have piles of used papers with blank sides? Email momopapers@hotmail.com or call 9851054476. It doesn't matter if your pile has 50 or 10,000 sheets of reusable paper. Contact the same if you want to scrap everything else and join their stapling party. All you need to bring along are a stapler, some pins and loads of enthusiasm.