Sustainable Agriculture Nepal Project #47616

Seeds of Hope-self sustainable Agriculture Project

Project Report | Oct 8, 2025
Seeds of Hope: Empowering Women in Rural Nepal.

By The Small World | Small World Team

Seeds of Hope women come together to share ideas,

Supporting Women Through Agriculture and Leadership

The Seeds of Hope Project was launched to strengthen rural women’s empowerment in Nepal through sustainable agriculture and community leadership training.

Through this program, we have:

Formed women’s groups in isolated villages
Provided agriculture training, distributed seeds, and built family greenhouses
Encouraged local problem-solving, peer support, and leadership development

These women are now growing vegetables year-round, improving food security, and building stronger, more self-reliant communities.

Women Leading Through Crisis

During the recent floods in Nepal, our women’s groups became a powerful network of care and cooperation.

Before this project, many women spent their days entirely focused on household chores and family care. Today, they stand united — working together, sharing challenges, and creating local solutions that protect and strengthen their communities.

When our team contacted project communities to check on their safety, the women proudly shared that they were helping each other, ensuring no one was left behind.

This is what Seeds of Hope truly represents — not just growing vegetables inside greenhouses, but growing confidence, independence, and leadership inside the hearts of women.

Real Change in Everyday Lives

Thanks to your continued support and belief in these women, mothers are now:

Providing fresh, nutritious food for their families
Buying school supplies for their children
Visiting the market independently and making their own financial decisions

The Seeds of Hope Agriculture Project has become a genuine seed of change in rural Nepal — where women are transforming their own lives, their families, and their villages.

Your support continues to make this possible. Every seed planted, every greenhouse built, and every training session conducted helps empower women farmers in Nepal to lead their communities toward a brighter, more sustainable future.

Together, we are building a movement that is truly #PoweredByWomen.

With heartfelt gratitude,
The Small World Team

Teaching women to grow seeds inside the greenhouse

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Dec 14, 2023
Seeds of Hope-Agriculture support program in Nepal

By Karma Sherpa | Executive Director & Co-Founder

Seeds of Hope vegetables in Solukhumbu

Today, we're celebrating the transformative journeys of vulnerable women, single mothers, and daily wage workers of the Seeds of Hope program in Solukhumbu! What began as a beacon of hope during the Covid-19 pandemic has evolved into a major agricultural support program, impacting over 950 households and empowering 5,700 individuals. Thanks to the YP Foundation, volunteers, parnters, individual donor, local communities and The Small World's efforts, this collaborative initiative is not just about sustenance; it's a testament to the importance of building economic empowerment and grassroots leadership for the resilience of rural communities.

Empowering Communities at the Grassroots Level
What has proven to be very beneficial are the women’s groups that we established; there are 25 women in each group and two key leaders from each group. These leaders are the liaison between the Small World team and the women; they contact us if anyone needs additional support from our experts.

The women have very much enjoyed this arrangement because they can easily share their stories and problems and find solutions in their groups.

With this arrangement, the women are empowered to find workable solutions, build relationships, establish trust and independence, and increase self-esteem, self-reliance, and a stronger community, which are all vital qualities, especially during the recent pandemic and any more to come.

Just as we have done in the past, TSW will continue working directly with local experts on local issues, sharing knowledge for greater uptake, and mobilizing resources for lasting impact.
These investments in climate-resilient and inclusive food systems also align with the critical action areas identified by the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit:

We invite you, your family, and your community to consider supporting this very important and long-lasting project within the 2024 season.

Our budget to support a family is USD$200, which will provide a family with more than 10 different kitchen garden seeds; training by an agriculture expert; a greenhouse tunnel; group formations; leadership programs, etc. Our goal is to benefit over 500 families. On average, each family has six members, so our plan would ultimately benefit over 3,000 individuals.

We hope you will consider helping us with this project that will provide urgently needed assistance as well as a long-term investment in sustainability for needy families of the remote Solukhumbu district.

Links:

Meet with our seeds of hope women farmers.

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Aug 18, 2023
Seeds of Hope Impacts, Update from the Field

By Sanam Sherpa | program director

Growing sustainable communities, one seed at a time

The Small World launched the Seeds of Hope program in response to Covid19 pandemic, and now it developed as an agriculture support program for communities in Everest region. We have been providing free seeds and agricultural training to empower families to grow their own food. Identifying those most at risk, such as single mothers, the unemployed, COVID-19-affected families, and vulnerable women, the initiative fostered community support groups to address local challenges.

Participants receives quality seeds and greenhouse tunnels, introducing new plant varieties for diversified nutrition.

The project aimed to

enhance small-scale farming capabilities in the region
improve nutrition for entire families, especially pregnant women and children
economically empower women, giving them more decision-making power in their households

We’d like to introduce you to the women who have been in our program and hear her story and challanges.

Goma:

Life-long farmer amazed by her record harvest

Goma has been farming for as long as she can remember. In fact, her parents kept her at home to work in the fields so she never had the chance to go to school. She is unable to read or write, and even struggles to write her own name.

Although this 49-year-old mother of two from Tingla village never attended school, she firmly believes in the importance of educating her own kids. Due to her lack of education, she says she sometimes has a hard time keeping up with conversations happening around her. She hopes for her children to be well educated so that they will be respected in society.

In the past, Goma had to rely on her husband to provide for all their financial needs, but in the last year she has started earning her own money. Since getting professional advice about how to maximize a plant’s yield, Goma said she was startled by how much output she was getting from the same crops she’d been farming for decades. “Of all my vegetable crops, my tomatoes did the best last year,” she informed us. “They grew so much that tomatoes started to drop from the plants and roll around on the floor!”

What’s a lady to do with so many tomatoes?

It was the biggest harvest she’s ever had .At first, she gave some to neighbors who didn’t have any. Then, she took a batch to the local market to sell. In addition, she started selling to outsiders who passed by her village, and she also made a trip to another village nearby to make some sales.

Before joining the Seeds of Hope program, Goma just grew enough food to feed her family. Now, she’s learning how to monetize the work she’s been doing her whole life for free. She said she’s grateful for the program’s training workshops that give live demonstrations and mostly verbal instructions so that people like her who are illiterate can also learn and benefit. The program has also taught her about how to grow new types of vegetables, and has given her ideas about how to sell her surplus produce.

Just beware of climate change…

One big issue that Goma and her peers all mentioned is changing weather patterns that seem to be altering the timing and amount of rainfall, snowfall and prolonged droughts.

Goma is grateful, but hopes for more in life

In the three years since Seeds of Hope came to Tingla, Goma and other participants of the program have all reported positive changes in their lives. Now, they’re able to feed their families with an abundance of healthy fresh foods, and their community has started implementing strategies to generate more income locally.

When asked what she dreams of doing in the future, however, Goma isn’t sure how to answer. “It’s hard to have a dream because I don’t know much, besides agriculture. If I could read and write and understand more, maybe I could get more ideas,” she replied wistfully. “So right now I’m just gonna stick to farming and see what I can do.”

Links:

http://www.thesmallworld.org

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