By Fionna Heiton | Project Leader
The final stage of the Community Resilience Programme in Nuwakot was the judging of the most improved community based on the following criteria: health and hygiene, environment, social situations and agriculture. Each community was visited by the Nepal management team and rated with a total score for all 4 criteria.
The results were announced at a ceremony in Nuwakot in December, attended by Rotarian and New Zealand Honorary Consul to Nepal, Lisa Choegyal with members of the rotary club of Midtown, Kathmandu.
The runner up community of Harkapur received a prize of Rs50,000 for the local school Shree Kanyadevi School and the winning community of Raniswara Bhalukhola was awarded a prize of Rs 100,000 for their school: Shree Srijansheel School. Both schools have made enormous efforts to improve, particularly Srijansheel which is now a model for others to follow. The entire community of Raniswara Bhalukhola had made a tremendous effort to improve hygiene, agricultural practises, the environment as well as helping each other during difficult times.
At the same ceremony, winners of the children's art competition with a theme of ' My Beautiful village" won Rs10,000 deposits to savings accounts for their future education.
Despite this programme coming to an end, First Steps Nepal will continue to support these communities with school support, teacher training and community education. Resources developed for Community education during this Community Resilience programme can be used in other rural communities that First Steps Nepal works with.
Conclusions:
The programme was first conceived in 2020 at the start of the COVID situation which rapidly changed as time progressed. It therefore, had to be adapted as the situation in Nepal changed with lock downs and restricted movement. Contact with all areas of the project was very difficult at times, particularly during lock down periods.
The Community animators were enthusiastic and gained skills they can take with them as they mature as adults. They did a good job at encouraging villagers, schools and students to adopt better health and hygiene practices and conduct local street and school clean ups. They also spread the word about trafficking through street theatre and a range of topics at school talks.
The COVID experience, although stressful, has resulted in many positive changes in the villages as a result of adapting to new ways of living. These included deeper knowledge of how infections spread, a respect for hygiene, improved hygiene practices, flourishing kitchen gardens, better relations between different ethnic groups and a sense of neighbourhood connectedness. Most schools have dramatically improved hygiene practices particularly in their kitchens and toilet areas.
The Community awards were a fantastic incentive to villages who had never been given the opportunity to win support like this before. People in the winning communities expressed their gratitude when payments were actually received for the local schools. This gained an enormous amount of leverage for First Steps Nepal in the communities for future work within these village communities.
We would like to express our gratitude to everyone who supported this programme and rural Nepali communities at such a challenging time.
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
