Nepalese deaf children request skills training

1. Background:

For over 20 years, Community Action Nepal (CAN), a non government organization, has been actively working in Nepal. Our aim in the remote and marginalised mountain communities we support is to tackle the impact of poverty and disadvantage through development activities including health, education, economic development opportunities and porter welfare. Underlying all our work is a deep commitment to human rights and the dignity of the individual, access to basic human needs, raising the standard of living and strengthening indigenous community-based culture in remote mountain communities. CAN believes that sustainable and positive change can be effected by empowering people with the skills, confidence and opportunities to improve their lives

CAN is a small organization, and only has a handful funding agencies but they have their own specific activities. So, CAN had requested Gobalgiving for the Nepal Enterprise fund. Under this theme, CAN has developed a proposal for goat rearing and requested to fund for Goat rearing project.

With the fund of GBP 6,000 from GlobalGiving, the goat rearing project is implemented in Shree Sindu Deaf school, Barhabise, Nepal. CAN has been partially supporting Sindu Deaf School, Barahabise since 2004, this project is being implement  by the School Management Committee in the school premises so that this project will teach students as a vocational training and helps students to enhance the capacity in goat raising. The income of  the project from the goat raising will help school for self sustain.

1. Objectives and Aim of the project:

2.i            The aim of the IGA activity:

• To increase the sale  from 0 to 15% within a year
• To reduce donor dependency
• To increase number of goats

2.ii            Objectives:

• To contribute to the economic & social development
• To increase sales
• To increase food security
• To enhance the knowledge and skills of deaf students
• To improve dignify life.

1. Activities  Undertaken:

Following are the activities undertaken after receiving a first installment.

3.i        Orientation Meeting Conducted:

After receiving a first installment, the CAN staff conducted an orientation meeting with the School Management Committee. During the orientation meeting, Project Manager oriented about the project objectives, rational, budget of the project and the funding agency; GlobalGiving to the participants.  After the meeting, there was a Q&A session and the meeting decided that it is necessary to establish a goat rearing committee for the transparency and accountability. So, the meeting voted a following persons in the committee:

Ms. Maina Karki, Co-ordinator

Mr. Bhojraj Shrestha

Ms. Srijana Ranjit

Mr. Ramesh Nepal

Mr. Kabita Neupane

Ms. Saraswoti Nepal

Ms. Santi Lama

The meeting also concluded and requested for the   1st tranche to initiate the work. The committee had also given the school bank account to transfer the fund.

3.ii       Training on Improved Goat shed:

After releasing the 1st tranche to Sindu Deaf School’s bank account, training on how to construct and management of the goat shed was provided to the school’s students. Livestock Officer from District Livestock Service Office (DLSO), a government body facilitate the training programme.

3.iii      Construction of Goat Shed:

With the active involvement of deaf students, the construction of improve shed was constructed  with a technical support from DLSO. Initially, to make the land clear for the shed construction, the deaf students actively cut down the unnecessary grasses and helped to construct the improve goat shed. Locally available materials like bamboos and recycled Corrugated Galvanized Iron (CGI) sheets were used for fencing. The floor of the  shed was built slightly slanting to prevent water and urine stagnation. Moreover, it is easy to collect manure (fertilizer) for planting.  

1. Hinder to implement Goat Rearing project:

Following are the challenges faced by the project to implement goat-rearing project:

4.i        Delay in getting fund:

When the project applied for the Nepal Enterprise fund, the project had planned to start the project from April 2018 because it is a good time in terms of climate and could be sell the goat in October during Hindu festival where Hindu people consume lots of goat meat.  However, the CAN only received the fund after 3 months from the proposed date. Due to delay in receiving fund, every planned activities were pushed behind.

4.ii       School Holidays:

As one of the objectives of this project is to provide vocational training to the deaf students so that they enhanced the skills to initiate the business when they go back to their home. Keeping in mind, the project was unable to implement the project due to summer holidays that started from 4 July – 5 August for 1 month. Because of this reason, the project has postponed the other project activities.

Apart from that school remains closed from 6 Oct – 17 November 2018 for the Dashain Holiday, Hindu biggest festival  and Tihar; festival of lights. Due to these national holidays, the project has also postponed other activities, namely, to buy goats.

4.iii      Landslides/ Rainy season:

Nepal has a rainy season from July-August. Due to rainy seasons, there is a high chance of mud slide. The area that project propose for the construction of the goat shed is on lightly sloppy land, but there was no risk of landslide in the proposed area. Due to sloppy land, all the water from hills area comes in that area and get more wet mud. So the project was unable to construct the goat shed in July-August. It is recommended by the  goat rearing committee that the project should construct the goat shed after the rainy season stop. If it is constructed during the raining season, then, it will not be last long.

4.iv      Expensive than expected:

Due to delay in each activity, it is forecasted that the price to  purchase goats, other miscellaneous activities will be increased by 5% in the total budget.

4.v       Planning for next:

The project has already constructed the goat shed, but the project will continue other activities from 1 December 2018  that involves purchasing varieties of goats, immunizations, and insurance and hiring a human resources to look after the goats.

1. Finance:

An agreement between GlobalGiving  and Community Action Nepal (CAN) was signed on 11^th  April, 2018. In the agreement,  GlobalGiving will provide a total amount of GBP 6,000 in three installments. ( 75% in 1^st, 17% in 2^nd and 8% in third installment). Till the date, the project had  received GBP 4500 on July 6^th 2018.

After receiving 1^st installment, the project had partially transferred the amount to the School’s bank account to initiate the work.

The project will transfer the remaining amount to the school’s bank account in the last week of November 2018 when they plan to buy goats.

1. Conclusion:

Initially, when developing business plan for goat rearing, the project had planned to start from April and sell the goat in October which  is a good season to sell the goat because  Nepali people consume lots of goat meat  during Dashain  festival. However, it was not happening this time.

As the school is near to the market and the road head, it is not difficult to raise goats. The project will buy goats from November 2018 onward and teach students how to take care of goats so that deaf students enhanced their skills on goat rearing and the project will contribute to  the self sustain of the Sindu Deaf School.

Community Action would like to thank to GlobalGiving to provide a fund for this project for the sustainability of CAN as well as Sindu Deaf School.

For more information:

Contact:

Mr. Sanjeev Singh

Ph: + 977 9841428342

Email: sanjeevsingh77@hotmail.com

Links:

• Goat Rearing Video Documantary Report