About Looma Education
Looma Education is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to offering all Nepali children access to a modern education.
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Looma Education’s roots stretch back nearly 30 years when founders David and Haydi Sowerwine were living in Nepal and working with USAID. Having developed a deep connection with and respect for the people and culture of Nepal, David and Haydi looked for ways to ease the challenges of daily life in rural Nepal. Through their company, Ecosystems, they designed, manufactured, and installed bridges, transport systems, pedal-powered generators and energy distribution systems throughout Nepal. Their WireBridges facilitated over 3 millions trips across deep river gorges, enabling children to go to school and adults to go to work during the monsoon season. The Sowerwines’ innovative designs have won numerous awards. The WireBridge won the San Jose Tech Museum TechAward in 2003, and the EcoPower systems won a 2006 World Bank Development Marketplace grant. In 2008, Ecosystems became the nonprofit VillageTechSolutions, and Skip Stritter joined as CEO and Technical Director, with a new focus on arsenic removal as well as exploring using technology to bring a modern education to village children. In 2019, the nonprofit was renamed Looma Education, to emphasize our primary focus on Education for All in Nepal.
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For nearly 30 years, we’ve been creating affordable, technology-based solutions to bring opportunity and hope to the next generation.
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We are one team across the US and Nepal. Our US team consists of an executive team, advisors in the technology and education sectors, and a very large group of dedicated volunteers and generous donors. All our US staff are unpaid. Our Nepal team, Village Solutions, consists of local experts who are responsible for strategic marketing, user feedback, product assembly, installation and maintenance, teacher training and regular school follow-up visits.
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Learn more about the success of our past projects.
Mission & Philosophy
Our Mission
Looma Education develops affordable technology to bring a modern education to all in Nepal, even those without power or Internet. In addition to developing technology, we provide installation and maintenance and teacher training through our local team.
Our Philosophy
For nearly 30 years, we’ve been creating affordable, technology-based solutions to bring opportunity and hope to the next generation. We are now solely focused on education as the gateway to opportunity and a better future for all. We understand that learning is most impactful when accomplished with modern teaching methods such as active learning, and with access to the world’s accumulated knowledge. Technology now exists that can help us bring these educational advantages and privileges to the least-resourced villages and kids.
We are committed to giving children the chance to learn and succeed. We are using technology and our own optimistic persistence to offer a modern education to as many children as possible.
We admire and respect Nepal’s cultures and history, and we seek and value the input of local teachers and students as we develop our products. All staff members in Nepal are native Nepalese, and many have personal experience with the challenges students face.
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We highly value our partnerships with the Nepali government, local governments and locally-led NGOs.