End Child Labour in Southern Nepal

We are so pleased to say that 105 children are now receiving education as part of our project - our extra curricular classes and are attending local schools. We couldn't say not to the extra children who, after seeing how much our children are enjoying the classes, wanted to finally (in most cases for the first time in their lives) receive education. 

There are of course different challenges due to weather, political situation, schools having unplanned holidays and many more unexpected events - but one thing is for sure, all the children continue to study, are making a progress, and are having fun at the same time. 

For the past few months we have been working on setting up a proper family support programme and we are very happy to announce that the first 10 families are starting their agricultural project. We have helped them set up a cooperative, provided the initial training (more training coming soon), have leased the land and signed an agreement with an agent who will assist with the agricultural part of the training and guarantees to buy all the vegetables grown by our families at a market rate. As it is a monsoon season in Nepal now, we will start proper planting after the rains finish. It is a bit of a strange year with the weather this year - it has been VERY hot and dry and the rains are expected to finish later than usual due to a massive delay to the start of the rainy season. 

From September or so, we will be enrolling the other families into other activities, we are planning the best solutions for individual families based on their skills, interests and resources available. The plan is to have all families set up with a sustainable business by the end of 2023 and we will spend year 2024 on evaluating of all these activities to help us build even more sustainable projects in the future. 

And exciting news from our library - it is all officially finished! Small set back - there is a road construction going on nearby and we are not able to deliver any furniture or supplies that we have had made for the library. It will apparently all be finished in a week or two so we are waiting eagerly to be able to deliver all the books and start some exciting classes with the children. 

Thank you so much for all the support - this is such an important project and we would not be able to deliver it without your help. Thanks to you, none of our children are working at brick factories anymore and all are attending school. Thank you!

We have had an incredibly busy and interesting time in the past few months. But all the hard work really paid off - all 93 children are attending the classes and their families are receiving the monthly support from us. We also have 12 extra children that joined our classes - and all are loving those. We are really proud of the children as we have 100% attendance rate. It is the same for the parents attending our monthly meetings, so far not even one family missed the meeting. 

This is what one of our 8 year old girls has to say: I never went to school but after joining Our Sansar classes I want to learn more. I never knew studying could be so much fun.

In the next few weeks, all the children will be attending regular school on top of our classes and we can't wait for it to happen. We will ensure all are ready and those that need additional support will receive as much of it as necessary. The children and parents have also requested us to continue with morning and evening classes so not to overwhelm the children with just tuition we are planning to do extra curricular activities that are not provided within the Nepalese system, such as sports, music or arts.

The most amazing news is that none of the children we are assisting are working at the brick factories anymore. We do very frequent checks on the factories and no children working there any more. That's a huge success! But we only cover 6 factories and there are 162 in the district so a lot more work to be done. 

We are now working on setting up a new library that the children from 2 schools that we are working with will be able to use. The process is a bit slow as the community building where the library will be based has no water, electricity and just rubble instead of a floor - so we are starting the renovations soon and hopefully the library will be fully operational within the next couple of months. It will not just be a traditional library but we will provide fun classes and activities to the local children aimed at inspiring them to study and complete their education. 

Next thing that we are starting to work on is a sustainable plan for the families. We are now exploring the idea of setting up a cooperative, doing market analysis and consult with the families. Might take 2 -3 months to complete but we should be able to have something good set up by the end of the year. Things take a very long time in Nepal!

And lastly, we are aiming to launch our Child Labour Free Campaign at some point in the next few months. We are now setting up a network of charities in that part of Nepal, talking to the businesses and government. We will give certifications to businesses that stop employing children. It will be a long process as we have to implement quite a few things before we launch this properly but a very positive start. 

Most importantly - thank you so much for all the support so far. It would not be possible for us to help these children without your help. We are really grateful and we will keep you updated as to the progress of the children and the whole project. In our next report, we are hoping to show you photos of all the children attending their regular school!

Thank you. 

We are so happy to report that all 20 children have 100% attendance at our classes and they are enjoying them a lot. Most of these children have never been to school before so they have been learning how to hold a pen, the alphabet and basic counting. All this was in preparation for them to start the regular school and that happened in October. On top of their regular school the children are attending our classes for 2 hours a day everyday to ensure that they learn properly and pass their exams. 

Sadly, the educational level at the local school is very low - many teachers just sign in and then leave the school so at times the students are left by themselves, many students don't attend any classes. Out of over 600 students that are enrolled into the school, only around 150 attend actual classes. So for our project to be successful we need to work closely with the school and the community to help improve the educational standards in a culturally sensitive way. It won't happen over night but based on our previous experience with similar projects it is doable. We have just hired another amazing teacher/educator who is starting to work with the principal, teachers and students to inspire and motivate everyone - that should be the first and main step to success. 

We are having monthly meetings with the parents to gather all their feedback and are trying to work with each family on an individual basis to see the best ways to help them in a sustainable way. 

January should be a very exciting month for us - more children will be joining our programme so there will be a lot to report in our next update. We will keep you up to date with some individual stories of the children and the project in general. 

Thank you so much for all your support so far. It really means a lot.