Joy Ransom leaves Dumfries behind today for another chapter in her South Asian adventure – and she couldn’t be happier.
The amazing 62-year-old – with 40 years experience at a primary school in Scotland under her belt – also goes with the blessing of the supportive community of Dumfries Baptist Church, of which she is a member.
She will be returning to her vital work with the Baptist Missionary Society helping to train teachers to educate children and teens in schools on the southern slopes of the Himalayan mountain ranges in Nepal.
Back in October, she came home to her mum, Audrey, in Heathhall but couldn’t return as planned because Nepal closed its borders in the pandemic.
Schools in Nepal have been closed for 10 months, but now that they are open again, Joy is keen to return today to her home in Lamjung so that she can continue the vital training she has been developing there and tried to continue virtually from Scotland.
She also wants to get back to progress the lunch feeding programme she is helping instigate for hundreds of children, and to hold – for the first time – a copy of her English phonics lessons book she has written and published.
She said: “I have enjoyed spending time with mum and had the time to get in touch with friends.
“I have a lot of friends who give me support and their prayers at Dumfries Baptist Church, Lochmaben Church and Lochmaben Primary School.
“That all helps keep me going.
“But I am now glad to be able to return to Nepal and carry on.”
Joy began in her teaching career in Aberdeen and spent 20 years teaching in the P1 to P4 classrooms over 11 years on and off at Lochmaben Primary before retiring in 2018.
She first came to Lochmaben after spending seven years in Okhaldhunda, east Nepal, with the Baptist Missionary Society teaching and helping with hospital, forestry and health clinic projects.
She spent six months of it learning the Nepali language.
Then, in 2015 – four months after the devastating earthquake in Nepal – she took a year-long sabbatical from Lochmaben Primary to become the only teacher for 12 months at Tansen Mission Hospital, educating the children of doctors and other ex-pat staff.
She returned to Nepal in 2018 but this time to train teachers, using all her skills and experience, on the mission which is called EQUIP and run by the Baptist Missionary Society.
Joy said: “My job is to help train teachers so they can teach in 15 village schools whose pupils are aged from three to 18.
“The aim is to make education in Nepal the best it can be through training.
“It is so different there compared to here. So I give the teachers a lot of support and show them the importance of interactive learning and using pictures.”
It means she has to trek miles on foot to reach the schools and talk to the teachers she is training.
They also don’t have books or libraries in the schools and Joy is working to improve that situation, especially for science and maths.
She said that although the schools are free to attend, many families are put off or unable to afford to send their children to school because they need uniforms, books, pens and pencils, which they can’t afford.
Joy said they are working to overcome this by have a scholarship fund in each school so that no-one has to miss out on learning.
She said: “There is also a big problem of the children being hungry and that affects their abilities in the classroom.
“Often the children have to walk for one or two hours to reach school and all they have to eat is tea and biscuits, so they arrive hungry.
“They are in school from 10am to 4pm.
“So I have been involved in a feeding programme at three of the schools so far and I am keen to see how it is going and how to increase this to more schools.”
Joy said they have been able to provide cooking utensils and have got parents to come into the schools to cook the children’s meals using local produce.
She said the feeding programme – which currently caters for 237 children – has also encouraged more children, aged three to 10, into school that would otherwise have been sent out to work by their families.
Joy also believes phonics training in English is the way forward and has created a book which teachers can use with their class to teach children to read and write and incorporates pictures, activities, stories and crafts.
She said: “The book has now been published in Nepal and I am really excited to see it and actually hold a copy.
“During lockdown I attempted to do some online teaching of phonics with the teachers but it was quite difficult to do. There were a lot of problems with power and most don’t have a computer or mobile phone, so I am glad to be going back there for the next two years until the EQUIP programme comes to an end.”
“I am just an ordinary person – nothing special – but my experience and what I can teach them is going to help them for the future. And that’s what keeps me going back there.”
