HOPAD Child and Women Capacity building Project

Namaste!

First of all I would like to apologize for this report to be late, but we wanted to wait to see our projects in action and this past week Purna Khattri our project director and I, Gesa Koerte, international volunteer from Germany, finally made it to Dang, a district in the rural western area of Nepal, where our GlobalGiving projects take place.

Thanks to the many generous donations, we were able to establish our project permanently on the GlobalGiving website, which will hopefully help us to keep up sustainable help for needy women and children in the rural areas of Nepal.

As soon as the first donations arrived here we started a 6 months tailoring project for 31 women. Split into two groups, they are the second batch to benefit from this program. Most of the women are from the Tharu community, an ethnic group that mostly settles in the Terai region of Nepal, which includes Dang. They are traditionally farmers, but for many of them that income is not enough, or the produce is just enough for their own needs. The tailoring project will give them the opportunity to expand their source of income and become more independent.

This program has been going on for a month now; all the participants made good progress and expressed their gratitude when we stopped by to visit the classes.

We were also able to start our next project a 3 month embroidery training for 28 women. Some of them already participated in our tailoring project last year and will expand their abilities; others are new to the program.

In the future we would like to continue and expand our efforts in Dang, therefore we decided, to support one class of the local government elementary school. The support will include stationary, the teacher's salary as well as classroom equipment.

We thank every single donor for believing in us and supporting us! Your donations really make a change in the lives of Nepali women and children.

Sincerely,

Gesa Koerte, in the name of the whole HOPAD Team