A CHARITY night at a Musselburgh restaurant has raised funds to support schools with solar-powered education in rural Nepal, where there is no electricity.

The recent event at the Gurkha Bar & Restaurant on North High Street raised £3,200 which, after covering some costs for staff, will be donated to the project.

The restaurant has also pledged £600 to sponsor one of the digital boxes being built under the supervision of the Kathmandu-based National Innovation Center (NIC), which would be solar powered and approved by the government in Nepal.

Ghana Bhandari, manager at the Gurkha Bar & Restaurant, said: “Students will get opportunities to learn all in one box, such as Nepali curriculum, BBC education and Oxford pages. The NIC projects are supported and approved by world-best universities and popular media too.”

Supporters at the charity night were welcomed by Mr Bhandari, a member of the Rotary Club of Musselburgh, and the rest of the staff team. He stressed that the “motto” for the evening was to “work together” with volunteers to help good causes in Scotland, the UK and Nepal.

Musical entertainment was provided by the Prestonpans Royal British Legion Pipe Band.

Event sponsors, who provided food and drink, included: Inverarity Morton; R S Trading Drinks Ltd; Global Foods, Edinburgh; and Spiceway, Glasgow.

The Mercat Bar and Grill in Whitecraig, Shanti Guest House in Pokhara, Nepal, and Mohan Karki, Nepali community leader, sponsored bottles for an auction and raffle.

Guests included Musselburgh Rotarians, representatives from the Spice Awards at which the Gurkha was named ‘Best Restaurant’ in East Scotland this year, and Nepali community volunteers.

They heard about the NIC’s work to sponsor solar-powered digital education in the mountainous part of Nepal.

Another speaker was Amol Neupne, who received the British Citizen Youth Award from Rotary in England for his fundraising work for the Oxford University Coronavirus Vaccine Research Project and Friends of NIC-Nepal charity.

Nepali leader Ujjal Karki, who has run marathons for the charity, also shared his experiences with the audience.

Donations are still being accepted by the team at the Gurkha Bar & Restaurant.