2010 saw the opening of the Spanish branch of The Umbrella Foundation. As with many of our branches world wide, the Spanish fraction was founded by a past volunteer, Hannah Mccurdy.

About Hannah

My name is Hannah Mccurdy and I volunteered with the Umbrella Foundation from February to May 2008.  I am currently the president and one of the founding members of Associació Calidoscopi.  Associació Calidoscopi is a legal non-profit association that we have begun in Barcelona, Spain in order to be able to continue our collaboration with The Umbrella Foundation from Spain.

I lived in Kathmandu from December 2007 to May 2008 and became familiar with Umbrella because I was volunteering in an illegal orphanage in the Baktipur district of Kathmandu that the Umbrella Foundation had heard about and which was a candidate for a child rescue mission. From the moment I began working with Umbrella to get that home closed down and the kids moved to Swayambhu, I had a deep respect for Umbrella and all that they do and stand for.

After 4 months living and working in Swoyambhu, these feelings became even stronger. That’s why, upon my return to Barcelona, my boyfriend and I decided to start a fundraising project for The Umbrella Foundation in Spain.  I knew that there had been Spanish volunteers at Umbrella and I wanted to make it as easy as possible for them to sponsor children or continue contributing to Umbrella once they got home.  This is one of the reasons we started Associació Calidoscopi.  

We also founded the association because of the key deposit project that we implemented in 2 youth hostels in Barcelona (www.behostels.com).  With this project, guests are asked to leave a one euro key deposit at their check in, and upon departure, we explain who Umbrella is and what they do and ask if they would like to donate that one euro to the cause. We have raised over 10,000 euros to date, meaning that over 10,000 people have wanted to support Umbrella and their work with the children of Nepal.