Around 60 members of south and mid-Wales Gurkha community attended a recent meeting in Cwmbran hosted jointly by the Gurkha Welfare Advice Centre (GWAC) and the Gurkha Service, which is part of the SSAFA, the Armed Forces charity.
Wales is home to approximately 330 heads of families made up of former Gurkhas, men who have fought for the Crown for more than 200 years and are some of the most respected and feared soldiers in the British Army. All told some 17,000 Gurkha families live in the UK.
Chaired by Mr Badri Yongya, a former Gurkha, the meeting took place at the West Pontnewydd Community Centre in Cwmbran.
Mr Laxmi Bantawa MBE, a SSAFA Gurkha Services Outreach Worker – late of the Second Battalion Royal Gurkha Rifles, and who saw active service in the Gulf and the Balkan Wars of the 1990s – spoke with passion about the work SSAFA does with this community and more generally about the charity’s work.
Also speaking was former Gurkha captain, Mr Mahendra Limbu of GWAC. His talk centred on the support available to help former Gurkhas and their families during the cost-of-living crisis, as well as an update on Gurkha Pension Scheme and Gurkha Veteran Advice Centre in Nepal.
Mr Bantawa, who has worked for SSAFA since 2017 said:
“It was a great pleasure to highlight to so many members of the Wales Gurkha community in Cwmbran just how the SSAFA Gurkha Service works, and I was grateful to my fellow speakers for their input.
“Engaging in this way with the Gurkha community is vital, and we work closely with other SSAFA colleagues in regional hubs and branches to help staff and volunteers with Gurkhas in their patch with advice and guidance on culture and customs to help them to support their Nepali clients.”
Mr Bantawa, who held the rank of Major, explained that though a small team – just two Gurkha outreach workers covering England and Wales with 23 and 17 Gurkha communities respectively – it has in the past year identified, engaged, and supported nearly 900 individual Gurkhas and their families.
Some of the Gurkha Services most recent work centred around digital exclusion experienced by some members of the Gurkha and Nepali community in Wales and elsewhere.
To address this, tablets – pre-loaded with applications in Nepali – were given to families in several locations including Cwmbran, Brecon, Newcastle, Leeds, Carlisle, Cardiff, Catterick, York, Doncaster, Nottingham, Derby, Liverpool, Bradford, and Manchester.
“Having access to IT in this format”, said Mr Bantawa, “allows the families and widows of Gurkha soldiers the ability to engage with essential services in the UK, as well as maintaining contact with relatives back in Nepal.”
For more information on SSAFA’s services for Gurkhas – retired or serving – and their families, visit ssafa.org.uk/gurkha-services.
