Another World - Development Nepal!

It is hard to leave Nepal for too long. I’ll be heading back for an all too brief week in a couple of days time and, with such a wonderfully warm and generous people, I am having difficulty fitting all I hope to do into seven days.

I’ve lived in Nepal several times before—I was there for five months last year and spent six months in 1996 teaching basic health and environmental education. The connection continued back over here when I imported hundreds of Nepalese felt hats to sell at Twickenham, Windsor, Wimbledon—all over the shop. Later I held Nepali conversation classes in the White Bear Pub much to the bemusement of the locals! I know when I return I’ll base myself for a few days in Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital, where Jeremy Southon (St Bedes ‘91-‘96) is working for SathSath, a street children’s charity, in conjunction with VSO. Jeremy is one of the other two founding trustees of Development Nepal (DN) and expects to remain in Nepal until 2004. Harriet Gibbons, the third trustee, has just returned from 8 months in Nepal, where she was working with a mother and child non-governmental organisation (NGO).

Over the last few years Jeremy, Harry and myself have spent much time in cafés and pubs around Europe hammering out the aims of Development Nepal prior to charity registration and to establishing Development Nepal’s core project, Ujyalo Bhabisya (UB)—“a brighter future”. Ujyalo Bhabisya is a series of year long empowerment projects comprising of basic Nepalese literacy, vocational training and micro-credit savings. The participants in the project are rural Nepalese aged fifteen to twenty years old who have all been excluded from schooling either because of their social status or because their economic position necessitated that they worked in the fields as soon as they were able.

The pilot Ujyalo Bhabisya project, which ran from September 2000 to September 2001, is in Sunsari, in Eastern Nepal. Although I’ll only spend a few fleeting days there it’s important to be able to discuss developments in person with this year’s participants as well as with our Nepalese facilitator and our partner organisations. Ujyalo Bhabisya gives the participants as great a say in the structure as possible, with the participants deciding, within the project’s framework, the content and length of their individual programme. This approach certainly paid dividends in the first year with the participants developing an encouraging sense of ownership and self-help.

[For more from Chris on how the combination of three aspects - literacy and personal development using keywords, vocational training and ongoing loan support - makes the fascinating Ujyalo Bhabisya projects unique see the next edition of the Blue Paper...]

If anyone is thinking of visiting Nepal, despite the current political climate, and is looking for advice on any aspect of Nepal do get in touch. If anyone is interested to know more about Development Nepal or would like to support the Nepalese through Project Ujyalo Bhabisya's development, Jeremy, Harry and myself would be delighted to hear from you. Our hope is to finance and run a three-year cycle of six projects in the Sunsari area. We anticipate that Ujyalo Bhabisya will continue independently in Sunsari at the end of Development Nepal’s proposed three year cycle, at which time we would then expect to export Ujyalo Bhabisya as a successfully proven empowerment programme to other parts of Nepal.

Only ten hours away but a world of difference. I still haven’t worked out how to fit everything into seven days, but as they say in Nepali, Ke Gharne - “it’s out of my hands, wait and see what the new day brings”.

Chris Kelly (Rutherford 1991-96)

Chriskelly77@yahoo.com
Development Nepal - email: developmentnepal@hotmail.com
(Registered Charity No. 1085199)

Discuss:
Ever visited Nepal? Have you had any experience of development projects like the one established by Chris, Jeremy and Harry? Any comments on their efforts or ideas about how they could extend their initiative?
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