CONTEXT
Street Child expanded our operations to Nepal following the devastating earthquakes in 2015 to assist local partners to re-establish education in some of the country’s worst-affected communities.
Since then we have developed our work to focus on long-term educational opportunities for vulnerable communities across the country.
Currently ranked 143 out of 189 countries on the Human Development Index (HDI) 2022, one of Nepal’s key educational milestones in the last 20 years has been achieving a school enrolment rate of 97% (UNICEF).
Despite having met this goal to ‘achieve universal primary education’, serious concerns remain about the quality and equity of these educational opportunities.
The country’s most vulnerable communities are still recovering from the damaging effects of ongoing COVID-19 national lockdowns, beginning March 2020. These lockdowns have had a
disproportionate impact on the local ‘lower-caste’ communities who cannot access information and supplies or services due to isolation and stigmatization.
WHAT WE ARE DOING
Street Child prides itself on being willing to go to the world’s toughest places, including remote, hard-to-reach areas and fragile, disaster-affected states, to support marginalized communities. Our work in Nepal is a perfect example. We have substantial programming in Madesh Province, where nearly half of the population is categorized as multidimensionally poor, and where the intensity of poverty is very high, meaning that those identified as multidimensionally poor are deprived across all socio-economic indicators.
As key contributors to the provincial ‘Beti Padhau, Beti Bachau’ (Educate Daughters, Save Daughters) campaign, our programs, delivered by our exceptional country partners, support out-of-school girls trapped in generational bonded labor to learn and earn. Across Nepal, we also work with children of migrant workers and children with disabilities to ensure fair and inclusive educational opportunities.
LEARNING SUPPORT
In addition to our education-in-emergencies work supporting children affected by the earthquakes of 2015, Street Child has launched a new initiative to bridge the COVID-19 learning gap in Nepal driven by school closures and economic devastation. This program uses the tried and tested Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) methodology to support children to swiftly catch-up on their learning, with the ultimate goal of getting them back into scohol at the right learning level for their age. This began as a pilot intervention, funded by the World Bank, and reached 2,240 children and 140 teachers in 64 schools.
After implementation of the project for ten weeks, an evaluation found remarkable progress in the learning levels of students, who made significant leaps in foundational literacy and numeracy.
CLIMATE-FOCUSED EDUCATION
Nepal is ranked fourth in the world in terms of vulnerability to climate change, according to the UN Development Program. We have been working with our local partners to develop a green school model, which we have piloted across 50 schools with Wildlife Conservation Nepal and are now seeking to roll out to 200 more schools. This education model works to address the climate crisis and the nature of human-wildlife conflict in Nepal by capacity building school leaders and teachers to create green schools and communities (e.g. learning about waste and water management), creation of green curricula, and environmental education and sustainability.
MARGINALIzED NO MORE
Street Child has closed our four-year flagship program Marginalized No More, which along with similar program Breaking the Bonds aimed to free more than 11,000 young women and girls of Nepal’s Musahar caste from debt bondage. Musahars are among the most politically marginalized, economically exploited and socially outcast groups in Nepal, and women bear the brunt; affected by gender-based violence and discrimination, they are almost entirely excluded from education, employment, decision-making and health systems, and only 4% are literate.
The program was 75% funded by the UK Govcernment’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and was the only program in that funding portfolio to be graded A+. It also received 5/5 for value for money. Read the full impact report here.
The children of migrant families face continuous interruptions to their studies. Brick factories attract seasonal workers who often bring their families with them. The brick factories in Kathmandu Valley are home to 59,500 children, only one-third of whom have moved beyond grade two of their education.
Through our Breaking Down Barriers program, Street Child has constructed schools at 14 brick factories, providing fully equipped classrooms, trained teachers and gender-sensitive latrines to ejsure girls’ continued education.
These earthquake-resilient brick schools now cater to over 2,934 children. Through the program we provide cost-free quality education, WASH facilities, along with daily mid-day meals and educational supplies necessary for children’s learning.
STORIES FROM OUR WORK
BIMALA, THE MOTHER WHOSE CHILDREN ARE BACK IN SCHOOL
'I am really happy with the school here... I don’t have to worry about my children’s education and I know that they are happy and safe. I don’t mind what my children decide to do in their future, I only want them to be happy and educated so they can freely choose what to do with their lives.'
Bimala travels to Nepal for work every year with her husband and three children. Like many parents who migrate to Nepal for brick kiln work she was worried about her children being out of school. “I just want a better life for my children, and education is very important for this. But in order to provide education I must work hard, even if this means my children must move schools twice every year.'
Street Child partnered with local NGO Kopila Nepa to set up a small school on the site of Bimala’s brick factory, so that the children have somewhere to learn while their parents work.
Bimala’s five-year-old son, Ashish, currently attends. This school uses a special curriculum and teaching methods designed to allow children to transition easily in and out of schools in their home districts, to minimize the disruption to their education caused by the yearly migration.
SARASWATI, THE EARTHQUAKE SURVIVOR DETERMINED TO SEE HER DAUGHTERS IN SCHOOL
Sindhuli was one of the districts worst affected by the earthquakes. For Saraswati, it meant her three daughters were unable to go to school, something she never wanted to see happen:
“When the first earthquake struck I ran to the school to check if my daughters were okay. I was scared to send my children back to school after the earthquakes, the building had cracks….whenever there was an aftershock all the children would start running out and get hurt….and I would rush to the school to check if my girls were alright.
'My parents didn’t want me to go to school because I was a girl. They said it wasn’t necessary. Today, one of my brothers is a doctor, one’s a vet, and one has his own business but I was never given that opportunity. This is why I am determined to educate all of my three girls so they can have a better life than me.'
After the Nepal earthquakes, many parents were scared to send their children to school because of damage to school buildings. Now Street Child are building more learning spaces in Sindhuli to ensure that children are safe to go to school. Saraswati is championing education for girls and boys in her community, leading by example in showing her community that it is safe for children to go back to school.
Sitli, Runa, and Dutri - young women from the Musahar caste
Sitli (left, aged 18), Runa (middle, aged 16), and Dutri (right, aged 18) are neighbors and friends – and all among the first cohort of Street Child’s Breaking the Bonds program. They are married but currently enrolled in and attending our first round of Accelerated Learning classes. Passionate and ambitious, they are determined to change attitudes to girls’ education in their communities, set up their own businesses to be more financially secure, and encourage more young Musahar women to get an education.
‘Jiten sir (the Community Educator), informed us of the classes in the community center and encouraged us to attend. In our first few months, we have learnt the Nepali alphabet and can count up to 100. This encourages us and gives us hope about what we can learn with even more lessons.
‘Our families are very supportive, and our husbands encourage us to go to classes every day to get an education. We hope that with an education we can set up our own small businesses. The only shops we have in our village are liquor shops, run by men. By having our own businesses, we think we can set an example to our community and help change attitudes.’
Sitli wants to run a grocery shop, Runa wants to set up a tailoring/sewing business and Dutri wants to create a cosmetics business. The girls, along with their families and communities, are grateful for the opportunity to have classes and there is some indication that attitudes are changing: when Street Child spoke to the wider community, one mother said that she wants her daughter to get an education, and that she will only let get her married once she is educated – and past the age of 20.