Building collectives of women and adolescents for sustainable economic transformation in Nepal

About the country

In order to capitalize on our previous experiences with the various stakeholders with whom we have already cooperated fruitfully, we are now carrying out our 3rd project in Nepal. You can see here and here for more details.

It is well known that societies are profoundly unequal in South Asia, economically and gender-wise, further fueled by the caste system. More specifically, in the region where we operate, a baseline study conducted in 2019 by a partner organization, reflects that vast problem. Caste wise disparity is around 73% and most of the respondents (women) have expressed different forms of violence common on their society and household like battering 72.7%, home left 33.7%, food restriction 31.3%, polygamy 32.7%, dowry 39.7% and even 40.7% allegation to witchcraft.

Dalit (formerly referred to as “Untouchables”) is the most marginalized and vulnerable population as a need assessment data analysis reveals that 97.3% of them are landless, have no access to productive arable land and about 60.3% have less than 3 months of food security. Also 40.7% of the Dalit and marginalized do not have any physical assets at all.

Main objectives

In addition to the climate change and its impact previously mentioned, it is about coping with discrimination linked to gender, caste, geographic isolation. It is hereby planned to help in resolving socio-economic impacts, including extreme poverty, as well as access to services especially health and eventually problems in governance level challenges as major to ensure gender and social justice.

Key principles

The project will consist in providing essential skills to marginalized population, essentially women and adolescent girls, and more specifically:

1

Trainings on sustainable and improved livestock farming and agriculture, business plan development, marketing and sales, together with climate change adaptation.

2

It will be completed with training on women’s leadership development (gender relation, self-awareness, leadership and accountability, negotiation and conflict management.

In cooperation with Aide à l’Enfance de l’Inde et du Népal: https://www.aein.lu