Bringing children back to schools

The earthquakes and aftershocks which struck Nepal in 2015 had an enormous impact on the country’s poorest communities. The effect on Nepal’s children has been particularly severe. Although Nepal has made some progress on education in the past decade, the 2015 earthquake threatens to undo this work entirely. An estimated 28,000 schools have been damaged or destroyed by the earthquake; teacher absenteeism is set to soar, especially in the most remote districts; books, teaching equipment and other education resources have been permanently lost and there was a high probability that many students will never return to education.

Following a comprehensive field assessment, Pragya undertook a post-disaster education rehabilitation programme with the objective of restoring access to primary education, improving teaching standards and creating safe, supportive learning environments for over 1,000 children in 8 poor rural communities in Nepal. 

After consultations with teachers and School Management Committees (SMCs), a range of Teaching and Learning Materials (TLMs) were distributed in schools that had lost or damaged its stock in Dhading and Sindhupalchok. Basic TLMs included: blackboards, whiteboards, flipcharts, marker pens, wall clocks, globes, maps, atlases, dictionaries, alphabet boxes, shapes boxes, counting games, learning charts (animals, birds, human body, insects, flowers, etc.), story books (English and Nepali), crayon sets, drawing and colouring books, stationery sets, and scrabble games. Science and Mathematics Learning kits were also distributed that comprised: microscopes, slides, test-tubes, slides, bar magnets, stop watches, prisms, weighing machines, geometry sets, compasses, rulers, and a range of educational charts and table books.

The TLMs were distributed during a ceremony organised at each school in presence of representatives from Parents-Teachers Association, SMCs, teachers and students. In addition, teachers were given orientation to proper use of the learning materials to obtain maximal learning. Teachers were also trained for psychological and trauma counselling to support students affected by the disaster. The Teachers have expressed satisfaction that the material has helped them in teaching various new concepts to the children. They reported that with the help of the TLMs and TLAs, they are being able to upgrade the instructional quality of the school and increase the students’ learning and comprehension of the subjects, thereby improving their learning achievement and contributing to improved attendance and reduced drop-outs.

Women’s Vigilance Committees to prevent trafficking

Women living in Nepal’s poorest rural communities have suffered the most and the longest from the effects of the 2015 earthquake. The most vulnerable women and girls become victims of trafficking, and need support, care, awareness, resources and confidence for their safety. In response to the increase in VAWG and trafficking in the disaster-affected districts, Pragya worked with women’s groups to address the issue. 

Pragya carried out a scoping study on VAWG in rural Nepal with a particular focus on trafficking, examining the escalating risk that women and adolescent girls of rural families affected by the 2015 earthquake. 20 women’s protection groups and helplines were established in Nuwakot and Dhading districts by Pragya benefitting 202 women directly. 8 Women’s Vigilance Committees were formed in Nuwakot (in Thangsingh, Suryamati villages), each comprising 13-20 members. In Dhading district, two Women’s Vigilance Committees were formed in Gajuri and Gangajamuna after due consideration of vulnerable pockets. 

The Women’s Vigilance Committees were trained intensively by an expert with long experience on countering trafficking at the Nepal-India border. Inputs were provided on various forms of gender-based violence, surveillance of indicators for GBV and trafficking, case logging, effective psycho-social support to women to counter their vulnerability to trafficking and other gender-based violence, including preventive measures and provide safe spaces to them, and protect them from further harm. These committees have also been tasked with spreading awareness in the community on gender issues.

These Women’s Vigilance Committees were also provided with mobile phones to operate Women’s Helplines, and trained in the associated Protocols for assisting girls and women vulnerable to GBV or trafficking. The Helplines have been promoted in the area such that an estimated 505 women may be served by each Helpline. Linkages were provided with police and government departments as well as women’s protection centres in the districts, to enable them to alert these in case of trafficking.

Monthly support was provided to the Women's Groups and over one year 46 cases were reported to the Helplines set up by Pragya and acted upon by the women’s groups. Pragya continues to provide support to build the capacity of the helpline operators in effective psycho-social and support to women to counter their vulnerability to trafficking and other gender-based violence. 

Sustainable fodder farms in Nepal Himalayas

Communities in Dolpa district in Nepal Himalayas live a very difficult life, suffering extreme hardship and poverty. These outlying and remote districts have a poverty rate as high as 72% (as against the national average of 42%) and the severity of poverty is also the highest at 8.2% (as against 3.4% for the plains in Nepal). Agriculture is the sole occupation, and majority of the population comprises smallholder households. Agricultural productivity is however very low due to limited arable land, infertile soils, and climatic conditions that typically allow only one/two cropping seasons a year. Dependence on forests is high, for food supplements, fodder and fuel wood needs of communities, but overexploitation of forests and rangelands is leading to their degradation. Women in Nepal suffer highly discriminatory social and cultural practices. They lag far behind the men in education and health status and are frequently subjected to physical abuse. Due to their lower education levels women also earn between 25-60% less than men. The high altitudes are also subject to severe impacts of climate change - desertification is increasing & droughts are frequent, threatening livelihoods. This is increasing women’s drudgery- women perform the household chores of collecting fodder and fuel wood from the forests, and have to trudge much farther and longer to collect what they need.

Under a Pragya initiative, SHGs were formed in the villages of Ralli (Tripurakot VDC), Funhalduwa (Raha VDC), Byashgard (Lawan VDC) in Dolpa district of Mid-Western Development Region in Nepal. Meetings were held with the Mahila Mandals [village level women’s groups] to share with them details of the activities that would be undertaken in the project and explaining the role and expectations from them in making the interventions effective and useful for the community. Following this, 42 women from three villages were provided comprehensive training on the concept and processes of SHGs. Training of members is an important need for proper functioning of SHGs and training inputs included: Basic mathematics, book keeping, scheduling of meetings, social aspects of women empowerment, basics of lending money, borrowing and repaying. They were also oriented on the registration procedure of SHGs and opening of bank accountsby the local Bank Manager and Cooperative Officer. Post-training, the women were facilitated to open the SHG bank accounts. 

 

Another training program was organized at which group members were trained on reclamation of wastelands and irrigation technologies. The training dealt with wasteland management strategies such as erosion control measures and moisture conservation techniques, facilitating greening through planting economically important tree/shrubs, fuelwood and fodder species and cultivation of horticulture/medicinal plant species for economic benefits. The women were trained by staff from the local Horticulture and Forest departments. Faculty also provided the women with information on state schemes available under the Horticulture and Forest departments that could be accessed by the groups, and leaflets on the schemes were distributed to the SHG members. 

Financial assistance was then provided to the SHGs for land clearing and preparation of fallow lands for cultivation. Each SHG has demarcated 2 acres of wasteland for cultivation of fodder/fuel wood species and saplings of apple. Women in the 3 villages have taken up sowing of corn in an area of 1 acre to meet their fodder requirement for livestock. They have harvested the crop once and this has resulted in reduced number of visits to the forest for collection of fodder. Women now go for fodder collection only twice a week as compared to 5-6 times a week before the establishment of fodder farm. This has enabled them to spend more time with their children and family. 

Field volunteers continued hand holding of these groups by participating in their monthly meetings and assisting them in maintaining registers. The Horticulture department after proper verification of group’s bank account and meeting registers have approved the provision of apple saplings for the 3 SHGs at subsidised rates. Similar application to the Forest department was made for provision of fuelwood species.

Sanitation access in Nepal schools

Shree Panchakanya Secondary School, Kiranchowk 2, Gajuri Gaupalika of Dhading district, Nepal was completely damaged during the earthquake 2015. The school educates around 200 students from a range of ages from 4 to 18 years of age. There was no toilet in the school when it started functioning after the earthquake. For few months there was facility of temporary toilet but later on there was no any facility of toilet for the students. The open area somehow was used by the boys but due to lack of toilet in school the  attendance of girl students started dwindling.

After a site assessment by Pragya a toilet was constructed in the school. Now the school has 1 toilet block for boys and girls. The school authorities are happy. The attendance of the girls in the school increased after the construction of toilet. A school management committee has now been allotted to keep the toilet clean and safe for use. The students also lend a helping hand to clean the toilets by themselves before the school starts.

A look back at Pragya's work in 2018... and a look forward at what's to come this year!

As is often the case with the coming of a new year, Pragya UK’s transition into January is serving as an important time of reflection! Here we’ve had a look back at Pragya’s work and progress in 2018, as well as a moment to look at what we hope to achieve going forward into 2019.

2018 was a busy year for Pragya’s programme in India. Our Food Security for Himalayan Smallholders project continued to go from strength to strength, empowering farmers to adapt their practices in response to changing ecosystems, guided by each other as well as through services provided by Pragya-supported Agri-Advisors, including soil testing and weather information. Farmers were also supported to add value to their produce with services established to provide them with information on prices, buyers and markets, in order to enhance their revenues and help move their communities out of poverty. We trained women’s Self-Help Groups in Nutri-dense farming and dietary requirements in order to increase each family’s calorific and micronutrient intake, helping lift communities out of hunger and food insecurity. Pragya UK made a field visit to project sites in and around Uttarkashi, meeting with members of a farmers’ cooperative supported by Pragya for local value addition and the development of ethical trading links, and also visiting Pragya-supported crop research plots that provide insights enabling the Agri-Advisors to assist farmers in crop diversification and Climate Smart Agriculture.

A Schools on Wheels lesson in Bhapkund camp

In 2018 Pragya further developed its programme for migrant communities in the Indian Himalayas. The past year has seen an emphasis on the importance of reducing levels of educational exclusion suffered by children of migrant road workers, providing the basis for our ongoing ‘Schools on Wheels’ campaign which transports learning materials and a trained teacher to migrant workers’ camps. The classes introduce basic literacy and numeracy and encourage both the children and their parents to develop an interest in education, with some adult classes being run as part of the programme. The project staff have also made progress in their liaisons with local schools near the camps, encouraging admissions of the children of migrant workers despite lack of documentation.

We also made significant progress with our project establishing DMS-Himalaya, a community-led disaster preparedness model for the Himalayan region. With the aim of increasing the resilience of neglected communities particularly prone to natural disasters due to the region’s unique climate and geography, Pragya have introduced the citizen-led disaster management system in order to empower communities for grassroots disaster risk reduction and response. In the project’s recent year, Pragya-established Disaster Response Teams received further intensive training and orientation, the integration of the model within existing disaster relief programmes was heavily promoted in meetings with state government officials, and the project was enhanced by the addition of a new element, Eco-DRR, an initiative that incorporates community-based monitoring of ecosystem health as part of their disaster preparedness. The DMS-Himalaya system was even successfully employed on several occasions as a response to incidents over the year – a positive step going forward in the development of the project.

Establishing a fodder farm at Simpani

In Nepal, 2018 saw the continuation of Pragya’s post-earthquake rehabilitation projects, primarily focused on communities in the disaster-struck rural districts of Dhading and Sindhupalchowk who continue to suffer from the long-term impacts of the earthquake such as the loss of livestock and damages to housing, community water sources and cultivatable land. Combatting the earthquake’s negative impact on WASH practices in these districts, Pragya’s implementation of the rehabilitation project included the installation of water tanks and community toilet blocks in the regions where such facilities had been damaged, the formation of Women’s Water and Sanitation Councils to ensure the sustainability of WASH improvements, and workshops in schools and in the wider community to raise awareness and provide training on community hygiene, sanitation and waste management practices. The earthquake’s threat to Nepalese livelihoods also continued to be addressed with repair of irrigation structures and pipelines to increase farming productivity, as well as the establishment of community fodder farms in regions that would benefit from shared farming space. Pragya also helped rehabilitate livelihoods, supporting disaster-affected families with livestock and poultry packages, and providing training in fields such as organic farming, goat rearing, and candle making. These projects helped build local enterprise capacity for sustainable income generation.

As part of our initiative to combat trafficking and other gender-based violence (GBV) in Nepal, an issue which had particularly escalated in districts where economic distress caused by the earthquake has been highest, Pragya continued to monitor the previously installed Women’s Helpline Centres and conducted further discussion and training with the Women Vigilance Committees. Helpline leaders and committee members have received further training in effective support to victims of GBV and awareness raising of the issues within their communities. Extensive efforts have also been made to establish linkages with police and government departments to foster an integrated response to GBV and a comprehensive support network for victims of GBV and those at risk.

A cultivation field demonstration session in Isecheno

In Kenya, the conservation and cultivation of medicinal plants in Kakamega Forest was a priority in 2018. The initiative saw Pragya addressing the depletion of threatened medicinal plant species by supporting Pragya-established Community Conservation Groups educating them on the importance of local biodiversity and building grassroots capacity for species identification, habitat monitoring, data collection and analysis. Awareness campaigns were also run in schools where children were encouraged to participate in conservation efforts and feed information learnt back to their families and peers, ensuring a greater scope of impact as well as the sustainability of the project. Pragya also expanded its earlier established plant nurseries in 2018, building propagation sites for important endangered medicinal plant species as a crucial conservation effort as well as a means of income generation for families within the community.

As for 2019… our commitment to transformational change for the communities with which we work of course lives on. Our efforts to strengthen community disaster preparedness remains a priority, with a view to the regional expansion of our work and the adoption of the latest appropriate and affordable disaster management technologies. We will significantly expand and enhance our Food Security work, helping secure the prosperity of smallholder farming communities in the face of climate change. We remain committed to serving the needs of highly disadvantaged ethic minority and migrant communities, supporting their access to education, health care, and rights, towards a brighter future. 

Our gender programme in 2019 will continue to challenge the many forms of violence against women that persist across the regions in which we operate, including work in south Asia to tackle the regionally-interconnected trafficking of women and girls for sexual exploitation and bonded labour. We will be exploring partnerships to further our maternal and reproductive healthcare work, working to improve the accessibility and capacity of community health services, helping to combat the appalling maternal and infant mortality rates commonly found in the marginalised and last mile communities that Pragya serves. Pragya will also strive to enhance access to safe water and quality sanitation in desperate communities deeply impacted by climate change, providing a vital lifeline in harsh environments and combatting the spread of water-borne diseases. We remain committed in 2019 to supporting the development of sustainable, culturally-appropriate livelihoods for those most desperately in need, with an emphasis on below-poverty-line and female-headed households. Our work in conservation will see neglected communities supported to conserve local biodiversity and protect habitats from anthropogenic pressures, through a combination of awareness-raising, community-led habitat monitoring, and advocacy. We will also support energy-deficient and under-electrified communities meet their energy needs by empowering communities to adopt and manage clean, off-grid energy technologies, which in turn will positively impact community education, healthcare and economic wellbeing.  

A flood affected Chars Community

2019 will also see the expansion of Pragya’s work in Bangladesh. Pragya has recently established its programme with the vulnerable communities of the Chars, or River Islands, in Bangladesh with the aims of enhancing disaster resilience, improving the standards of WASH and livelihood capacities, and empowering women and girls for their protection from trafficking and other gender-based violence.

This is just some of the vitally important work Pragya is committed to in 2019. Everything we do is only made possible through the generosity of our supporters. If you’d like to make a contribution to our work and join us on our journey, please visit https://www.pragya.org/donate.php - Thank you so much.