The Girls Education Project in Rural Nepal

The financial year ends on the 16^th of July in Nepal. We have expended 725,572 rupees (£5,573 or US$8,136) in total in the year on the Girls’ Education Project. 105 girls from the poorest of the poor families have been supported through the project to receive a formal education in Mahadeva municipality of Saptari district, Nepal. It means £53 per girl for the year.

Breaking down the cost, we have expended £746 on study materials (£7/per girl), £1,398 on uniform (£14/per girl), £140 on extra tuition and exam fees, £280 on bicycles and £573 on awareness raising activities. Similarly, £1,542 was expended on project implementation, monitoring and reporting, and £902 on support to the partner organisation towards admin, bills and governance.

The study support package includes notebooks, pens, extra tuition and exam fees, a bicycle if the school is far to walk, uniform (a pair of trousers, skirt, shirt, socks, shoes, sandals, hat and scarf) and all the support. Textbooks are provided by the government, and there is no schooling fee in the local community schools.   

Currently, a full-time senior project assistant and three full-time interns are managing the project, and monitor all the girls to ensure they attend school regularly. The girls come from ten different villages and go twelve different local schools. The project assistant and the interns visit all the schools and villages regularly, so it’s not an easy job. They also report the progress to the chair and board of trustees monthly.

Although the majority of girls are now completing the final year of secondary schooling through the project, they are not progressing towards higher secondary schooling. It is because they achieve a poorer grade in the final exams which doesn’t allow them to do so and the culture of teenage teen marriages. Therefore, from this year’s and forward our focus will be given on how the girls achieve a better grade along with others. We strongly believe that a better grade will motivate some girls to progress towards higher secondary schooling.    

Nepal Village Foundation’s board of trustees are now considering to sponsor interested girls from the poor families to study further, but barely any girl meets the criteria. Hence, new project activities, such as an extra tuition class before and after the school hours for every girl will be considered to achieve the goal.

Carefully looking at the inflation rate and the new project activities, our prediction for the 2018/19 is £60 or US$88 per girl. If you are sponsoring a girl by giving regularly, then please adjust your donation accordingly, and if you are not, then please sponsor a girl today. Your donation is making a huge and real difference to improve the lives of disadvantaged girls and women in rural Nepal. 

Three weeks ago the year-end class test was taken and, we confirm that all the 106 girls in the scheme have stepped up a class. To prepare the girls for the next class, we have provided a new set of uniform, new school bag and sufficient study materials. Four ladies from the village have stitched all the 106 set of uniform. The ladies made sufficient income from the job that they would normally make in three months. The ladies are grateful to get the job.

Similarly, 780 notebooks, 297 pens and 106 school bags that we provided to the girls two weeks ago purchased from the local suppliers. In total, we spent 143,823 rupees (£1028) to provide all of these. The girls will get a new set of winter uniform as well in November and sufficient notebooks and pens every quarterly.

To ensure all the 106 girls attend school regularly, we have hired three new full-time volunteers. Now, all together we have four staff to monitor the girls. The three new volunteers are Radha, Kiran and Renu and Renu is one of our ex-pupils. They completed their secondary schooling last year. The three volunteers will cost 180,000 rupees (£1286) annually.

The belief that women in the community can only work in-house and field has to come to an end because it demotivates girls in the community to retrieve a formal education. We strongly believe that creating a job opportunity for girls in the community will create a dynamic environment in which it will be easier for the girls to retrieve a formal education. Creating such an opportunity for girls in the community will give them a real feel to use of an education which hopefully will create a realisation for the need of an education.

Over the next months and years, we will be working to reduce the gap between parents of the girls and teachers. Parents of the girls rarely visit the school to see how well they are doing. We will be persuading the parents to visit the school regularly with our staff and make them involve in and show an interest. By doing that will develop a pressure on the teachers as well as to teach pupils better which will contribute to improving the quality of teaching and learning.