By Fionna Heiton | CEO, First Steps Himalaya
Despite the rapid spread of COVID-19 in Nepal, the Community Resilience Programme is now able to proceed due to the generosity of all the people who have donated. This is fantastic news as their is such a need to build community resilience in so many parts of Nepal.
The first area for the project to focus will be Nuwakot which is only 70km northwest of the capital, Kathmandu but takes at least three hours by road to the poor infrastructure and challenging geographical terrain. Kalyanpur is on the edge of Bidur Municipality and has received little help from the outside world, until the local community leader contacted First Steps Himalaya with plea for help.
This is what he says "As the Ward Chairperson of Bidur Municipality, Nuwakot District, Nepal, I have a little story how I found First Steps Himalaya and asked them to start working in my area. A lot of things need to be done here but our education, health and road facilities need to be vastly improved in order to have a fucntioning infrastructure. The area is very hilly and my community is connected only by village tracks. Very few organisations have helped our area even after the earthquake in 2015. It took 3 years to get new school buildings after the original ones were damaged beyond repair. I searched the internet for anyone who could help us and found First Steps Himalaya. I was excited when they got back to me offering support for our schools. They have been supporting Early Years Education here since 2018 and the change has been fantastic. They have also built an Earthbag school. Teachers who were untrained, now provide lessons that interest the children. Classrooms that were bare are now nurturing learning environments."
"Since COVID-19 migrant labourers have been returning to their villages. I am really worried as they have no jobs and their fields have been lying uncultivated in their absence. We need to work with families to get them growing nutritious crops and mobilise them to understand the dangers of alcohol and drug abuse as well as human traffickers who lure unsuspecting victims to Kathmandu and abroad. I am so grateful to everyone who has donated and am totally committed to this project. Thank you!'
The planning stage of this project is now well underway.
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