Alister Henskens portrait
Alister Henskens portrait

Sambhav Nepal Charity Founder Allan Waldon

Village at the base of mountains

Mr ALISTER HENSKENS (Ku-ring-gai—Minister for Skills and Training, Minister for Science, Innovation and Technology, Minister for Enterprise, Investment and Trade, and Minister for Sport) (21:32): All great projects start with an idea. Sixteen years ago, Allan Waldon, better known as "Allan the Butcher", had a remarkable idea of his own while running his small butcher shop in Turramurra, which he sold in my early days as a parliamentarian. In 2006 Allan visited Nepal and upon returning to Australia helped co-found a charity called Sambhav Nepal. While running the butcher shop he would give people dog bones for a gold coin donation, eventually raising $139,000 over 10 years that went to a poor village in Nepal. To date, the charity has helped over 50 schools and 50,000 people across several countries. Allan also had the idea to help women and girls with reusable personal hygiene kits. After riding 4,000 kilometres across the desert he raised over $100,000 that supplied personal hygiene products to 8,000 girls across 36 schools. This enabled them to attend over 1,440,000 extra days of school. Notably, Wahroonga Rotary has been an ongoing supporter of Allan's projects. I commend Allan for his great work.