Creating child-friendly Learning Center in Nepal

Creating a child-friendly Learning Center in Nepal was initiated as a project to support the 205 children from a Musahar community in the Madhesh province of Nepal. Out of the total 7 provinces in Nepal, Madhesh Province, falls under the Terai belt and its capital city is Janakpur.

In Nepal, the centuries-old Hindu hierarchical caste system includes Brahmins, Chhetri, Vaishya, Shudra, and Dalits, who are considered the untouchables and are the lowest marginalized caste. Over the total population of 36 million, the Dalits in Nepal comprise 13.6% of the total population in a long battle to make their daily life run smoothly and consistently. Even among the Dalits, the Musahar falls under marginalized communities. These communities are often disadvantaged in accessing health care, proper education, and employment that would enhance their well-being. 

In 2011, 21.9% of Musahar had their basic literacy level, and the entire community was ranked 129th out of 130 ethnic groups with a national literacy rate. The community is considered one of the least educated groups in Nepal. 

The learning center facilitates 205 children from the Musahar communities nearby in presence of 4 facilitators who are high school graduates and members of the same community. In presence of the 4 facilitators, we have been supporting the numeracy and literacy skills of the children at present. In addition to the basic literacy skills, we also conduct a monthly stationery distribution drive for the children and also support the facilitators' capacity-building. We were able to carry out the activities at the learning center in support of the funds we gathered from the GlobalGiving community. 

At present, the number of children coming to the learning center has increased posing a challenge for the facilitators. We provided a TOT on capacity building for the facilitators last month. Now we want to pilot the capacity-building project among the children whose learning levels are high and who attend grades 7-10. Our aim is to create a pool of facilitators for the continuous learning of children at the learning center. 

To achieve this, we need your support. To begin with, thank you so much for your continuous support so far. We would love it if you could share our project with your friends, family, peers, and colleagues.