CHILDCARE students from Borders College completed their studies last week by hosting a banquet for Nepal.

Joining the girls and their tutors for the feast was the Border Telegraph’s David Knox, who was caught up in the recent earthquake on April 25, to describe the problems which face the Asian country.

More than 8,000 people were killed during the initial tremor and hundreds of thousands left homeless.

The HNC Early Education and Childcare class of 2015 chose Nepal as their end of term charity.

And each of them, as well as the tutors, donated money to tuck into the homemade lunch.

Claire Dodds from Selkirk was amongst the students. She said: “The earthquake had just happened when we were asked to choose a charity. It was terrible for the people in Nepal and we all agreed to help.

“Each of us made items for the lunch and we all have donated the same amount as we used for buying the ingredients.” A dozen of the students and a handful of lecturers spent Thursday discussing the problems in Nepal as well as reflecting on their past year at the College.

Tutor Jenny Phipps added: “We are all very pleased to be supporting charity work in Nepal.

“The students have been a great bunch all year and they have worked so hard.” David described his own time in Nepal and recommended a rural charity to benefit from the lunch fundraising.

And the £90 which was raised will go towards Farmhouse Nepal which is buying corrugated iron roofing for villages which have been devastated by the earthquakes.

David told us: “Farmhouse Nepal is run by a friend of ours called Aman Pariyar. He started the charity to buy tools for the remotest of farmers but this was quickly overtaken by the earthquake and now they are delivering roofs to remote villages.

“Many thousands of people are still homeless. They can rebuild their homes with the rubble but they need new roofing.”