A security contractor's Gurkha payroll turns into a donation
- Published
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- MRN
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- Fundraising
In March 2016 the organisation was invited to the Tysons Corner offices of Aegis Defense Services to explain what it was doing in Sindhupalchowk.
The connection is direct rather than sentimental. Aegis had employed Nepalese Gurkhas in security roles for about a decade, in Iraq and Afghanistan, guarding embassies and diplomatic missions including those of the United States and the United Kingdom. At the time of the presentation the company employed more than 650 Nepalese Gurkhas supporting the US Department of State in Afghanistan.
The company's $10,000 donation is recorded in the organisation's monthly accounts for August 2015, when it was the largest single gift of the month. By the time of the office visit in March 2016, the money raised from donors like Aegis had put 368 families under a roof.
Corporate giving of this kind was a small share of the total. The overwhelming majority of the organisation's income came from temples, community associations and individual Nepali households in the United States, most of it in amounts between $335 and a few thousand dollars.
