Lamb Race - Nepal Earthquake Relief

For a number of years now, myself and a group of friends have been running an annual charity lamb race in Tullow, Ireland with the kind support of Paul and Nicky Maher, who once a year let us loose on their farm and trust us with their lambs.


This year the lambs are running on June 13th to help to provide relief in Nepal following the massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake on April 25th 2015 and subsequent aftershocks that have killed 8,633 people and injured 16,808. The earthquakes have destroyed over 500,000 homes and damaged 270,000 more. People have been sleeping outside under temporary tarpaulins, but the monsoon rains are imminent which will increase the likelihood of landslides, making the villages more inaccessible and monsoon-proof shelter is needed immediately. The United Nations estimates that 2.8 million people are currently in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.

The lamb race is supporting two small Nepalese NGOs Karmaflights http://www.karmaflights.org/ and SATHI Nepal www.sathinepal.org ‌that together with their partners have been instrumental in providing relief to numerous villages in Nepal. There is more information below on the fantastic work these organisations are doing. 

Please sponsor one of the Tullow "racelambs" and be in with a chance of entering the winners’ enclosure and winning this coveted title, while helping earthquake relief in Nepal.

This is the way it works:
For €25 you can sponsor a whole lamb and have the right to name him/her – maybe after your favourite popstar Lady Baa-Baa, politician Baaa-rack-o-lamba, racing car driver Jenson Mutton or movie Wool-verine?

Or you can team up with your friends and sponsor one of three ‘legs’ of a lamb for €10 each.

There is a special prize for the best name. If you cannot think of one immediately, you can send in the name any time until the day before the race (June 12th). There are a maximum of 100 lambs in the field, so don’t delay in reserving one. As the race has a Nepali theme this year, there are lots of new naming possibilities – Lamb-jung Lady pictured below is already a confirmed runner.

Lamb-jung Lady doing some high-altitude training at Everest Base Camp in April this year

The prizes for the first lambs over the finish line are:

1st place €150 (or €50 per sponsor for shared lambs)
2nd place €75 (or €25 per sponsor for shared lambs)
3rd place €30 (or €10 per sponsor for shared lambs)

As ever, our independent adjudicator (Mr. Maher the farmer) will be there for any close calls and his decision is final!
(We have limited video and photo-finish facilities to assist if necessary.)

Thanks in advance for your support! Please take some time to read more about our chosen charities below. A temporary shelter costs $100 to build, so for every 4 lambs sponsored a shelter can be built to keep a Nepalese family safe during the monsoon.

Niamh,
on behalf of the The Lamb Race Committee!


We have picked Karmaflights and SATHI Nepal to support because of the work that they did in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake – sending jeeps of food, blankets, clothes, tarpaulins and medical supplies to the remote villages in the Gorkha district in the epicentre of the quake and the work that they continue to do one month after the earthquake and will continue to do as long as it is needed.
I was in Nepal during and after the earthquake and lucky to be in a safe place. In the couple of weeks following it, I volunteered with Karmaflights, who along with SATHI Nepal are part of the Centrepoint Relief Initiative which were able to provide aid to the remote areas where none of the major aid agencies could reach in the critical window in the days following the earthquake. The people volunteering and working with Karmaflights and SATHI Nepal comprise both local Nepali and westerners living in Nepal, which means they have local knowledge, contacts and language skills which have been extremely important in the relief effort. They are also extremely dedicated and have been working around the clock to provide aid and have been partnering with other larger organisations to extend their reach. Regular updates on the work that they have been doing can be found on their facebook pages.