Tag Archives: Nepal

Ganga Hopes to Make Daughter’s Dream Come True

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Women's leadership in Nepal

Ganga and her goats. Photo by Geoff Oliver Bugbee, courtesy of Heifer International.

Ganga belongs to the Gurung ethnicity of Chhang Village, Tahanu. The Gurung have a proud heritage and are famous for their bravery during their service in the Nepalese and the British Army. They are quite and helpful and like to keep to themselves. The women are more introverted than men and keep themselves busy in farm and house work.

Ganga has emerged as a strong leader in the village. Her leadership in the local school’s management committee is exemplary. She is also sought after for advice on goat keeping and vegetable farming by all men and women in the village. Ganga’s eldest daughter Yamuna Ale just finished her 10th grade. She wants to become a nurse and Ganga aims to fulfill her daughter’s dream. In the past three months Ganga has earned seventeen thousand rupees from the goats which will come in handy in paying Yamuna’s tuition.

Heifer increases goat productivity in Nepal

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In January Heifer launched its dream project for Nepal, Strengthening Livestock Value Chain (SLVC). Its goals are to increase meat and milk production to substitute current imports and create a unique value chain for meat and milk that incorporates smallholder farmers not only in the production phase but also in marketing it. But there was a glitch. Over the years degradation of genetic merit in goats resulted in lower levels of productivity. In layman’s terms, they had fewer babies who did not grow as well and farmers could not sell them for good prices.

Farmers of Ladavir in the Sindhuli district in eastern foothills of Nepal are a part of a unique classroom under the Community Initiative for Genetic Improvement in Goats (CIGIG). Here they learn about how to improve production of goats through selective breeding. These farmers are not new to rearing goats but what they learn in this classroom will teach them to do so in a more scientific way through observation and intervention. To put it simply, it’s the Mendel’s Law in action. A pool of healthy genetically superior does and bucks will be produced by the end of the project and will be marketed across communities around the country to in-turn increase their production. Ladavir will be a training ground and resource village for genetically superior high productivity goats.

Heifer’s work around the world is not just limited giving animals and agricultural inputs if farmers but also extends to doing what needs to be done to bridge the gaps between the present that the future that Heifer envisioned together with the families it works with. CIGIG is one such initiative.

Participants of the first CIGIG class mull over a poster that depicts how to select a good male and female goat from physical traits for breeding.

Heifer Cooperatives in Nepal Bring Lasting Changes

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Nepal celebrates the United Nations International Day of Cooperatives with the rest of the developing world. In Heifer communities throughout Nepal a new wave of cooperatives is promising lasting impacts in battling hunger and poverty and caring for the Earth.

Why cooperatives?

Cooperatives have been marked as one of the pillars for Nepal’s economic transformation after it was declared a people’s republic; the other two being the state and the private sector. Recent development discourse has also shown keen interest in promotion of community based cooperatives focused on production and market establishment.

How are Heifer Cooperatives different?

Successful cooperatives depict strong cohesion, mutual prosperity and a strong ability to capture social capital. The values-based foundation that Heifer lays through intensive social mobilization has resulted in strong social capital induced sustainability. Under the flagship of Social Entrepreneurial Women’s Cooperative Limited, Heifer’s cooperatives aim to be value positive, power negative and politically neutral with strong emphasis in capacity building for production and marketing as per market signals and value addition while building institutional capacity and ensuring effective and efficient management. The services provided by the cooperatives will benefit farmers who don’t have easy access to formal financial services and lead investment in income generation activities and micro enterprises. The cooperatives will also be in a better positioned to advocate for effective services from the government to small farmers, benefitting more farmers in the longer run. Managed and led by women, the cooperative will create opportunities for other women like them.

How are we doing this?

Fifty-five such cooperatives have been formed throughout Nepal incorporating Heifer families and other farmers in the community who are exploring different agricultural enterprising avenues. One such cooperative is the Laganshil Social Entrepreneurial Women’s Cooperative in Shaktikhor. With close to 300 members in and around the area, the cooperative specializes in goat farming. Goats are the most preferred meat in Nepal with the country importing a major chunk of its consumption from India. Smallholder farmers, although capable of ramping-up production to meet growing market demands, are limited from commercial markets and necessary capital. Laganshil cooperative has ventured to strategically increase production from individual farmers and sell to consumers directly and indirectly acting as a marketing entity, hence bridging the gap between producers and consumers and ensuring the producers a decent share of the profit.

What are the ripple effects?

Now Laganshil cooperative is incorporating smallholder farmers from surrounding villages like Siddhi, which is cut-off from any market, to ensure they have a channel to sell their produce. The cooperative will partner with private and public banks to assure the flow of capital, will have a stake in channeling the various factors of production, in their case, feed and fodder for the goats and will liaison with government and non-government development partners. “We are doing what each goat farmer in every household spent a decent amount of time engaging in. It benefits all when these things (market access and access to factors of production) are managed by one entity. Our aim is to make Laganshil cooperative the go-to place for meat goats in the region,” said Chammi Magar, the President of the cooperative.

How will this be sustainable?

When farmers get a fair share in market profits, it not only ensures food security but also encourages small enterprises that are paramount to a healthy economy. With its strong values-base foundations, these cooperatives will put social values into commercial enterprises making it both socially responsible economically viable. Cooperatives in Chitwan and Nawalparasi have already been united into district unions who are influencing district level policies and coordination that favor smallholder farmers. These district unions are already voicing the needs of small holder farmers and shaping the landscape so that they are not left behind when the country moves forward economically. This is crucial to battling poverty in Nepal where 80 percent of the population are directly or indirectly dependent on agriculture in the country. “I hope someday we will have good profits from goat farming so my children don’t have to leave the country to get jobs,” said Ganga Magar. Her hopes are similar to the hope of thousands in Nepal.

Cooperatives in Nepal

Cooperative members hold a meeting in the shade to escape the grueling summer heat. Photo courtesy of Heifer Nepal.

Nepal Cooperatives

The village of Shakitkhor sits at the heart of a radical cooperative movement. Photo courtesy of Heifer Nepal.

Read more about how Heifer International uses cooperatives in our work around the world.

Heifer 12 x 12 China and Nepal Round-Up

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Blogger Betty Londergan of Heifer 12 x 12 has wrapped up her writing about her trips to visit Heifer’s work in China and Nepal, just in time to head to Cameroon. Check out this round-up of Betty’s lively posts from halfway around the world.

China:

Nepal:

Stay tuned on Heifer 12 x 12 as Betty writes about her adventures with Heifer in Cameroon. And click here to help Betty reach her Team Heifer goal of raising $5,000 for Heifer.

Progress Moves from Family to Community

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Ganga Ale is fast on her way to becoming a leader in her community. As the only educated member of her women’s group, Ganga feels that it is her responsibility to lead her community towards a better life. She received five goats from Heifer and trainings that boosted her
confidence.

In the past three months her family’s potato farm has raked in two quintals of produce, almost twice what she produced last year. She now was 14 goats, and she bought some more with a loan from the group fund. They need a new pen, which she and her husband will build later this month. This pen will be improved as she was taught in Heifer’s animal management trainings. Her eldest daughter, Yamuna, will be graduating from school this year. Ganga is excited about her daughter going to college. She wants her to study business so she can also learn a few things from her to implement in her farm.

There are plans to build a road connecting the village to the main highway. Ganga plans to be involved in negotiating the maximum budget from the village development committee. “This road will improve the market linkage for our produces. We have high hopes for the future,” she
said. 
Editor’s note: This post is part of a series that follows the progress of specific families, starting at the beginning of their work with Heifer. Today’s post is the second in a series of  quarterly updates on the progress of Ganga Ale and her family. You can read the first post about this family here.

Family Leads Community Towards Sustainability

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Durga Koirala has been very busy in the past 3 months. She received a buffalo from Heifer and only had oxen for draft power. The income from selling buffalo’s milk this quarter helped pay the school tuition for her two sons Sushil (17) and Sudip (16). Durga’s husband is very impressed with the things she has learned from the project. He is so impressed with the group fund that the members have started and how the members of Durga’s group have been using small loans from it to invest in income generating activities, that he too formed a men’s group with his friends and started a group savings of his own. “It has been difficult to get funds when we need them. I didn’t realize that saving a few rupees every month would solve the problem,” Padam said.

Durga’s sons have been pretty busy too. Sushil and Sudip have formed a youth group. Their plan is to engage the youth in the community in creative and community building activities. Durga seems to have communicated the essence of the trainings she received through the project very well to her family.

Editor’s note: This post is part of a series that follows the progress of specific families, starting at the beginning of their work with Heifer. Initially, this series will focus on our programs in Asia/South Pacific, where our colleagues have chosen one family in each region in the countries where we work and will bring us quarterly updates.

A piece of land to live in

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Laxmi’s family is landless. The small house she and her family live on is on government land. When she received two goats from Heifer it seems like she and her husband would no longer have to struggle to put food on the table for her son Bishal (8) and daughter Trishala (1). Things were so bad for the family that Bishal had to go live with his maternal uncle as Laxmi could not feed him. But things have been better than they expected.

A steady income from goats has enabled the family to lease a plot of land and grow crops. Half of this goes to the land owners but the half that remains gives the family something to rely on. Laxmi and her husband have planted mustard and lentils. The burms of the land have fodder growing in them for the goats. In the next few months the goat kids will be old enough to sell. The family lives comfortably for now, but there is much to do. Laxmi’s dream is to buy a plot of land in the same village. With Heifer’s inputs and training, Laxmi feels she can live her dream.

Editor’s note: This post is part of a series that follows the progress of specific families, starting at the beginning of their work with Heifer. Initially, this series will focus on our programs in Asia/South Pacific, where our colleagues have chosen one family in each region in the countries where we work and will bring us quarterly updates.

A Step Closer

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Maya Rani Thau is landless. She and her husband, Gopi work day and night on a small piece of leased land for half the land’s yield. She received two goats from Heifer and trainings that taught her to get the maximum benefit out of the land and animals. Her dream is for her three sons to go to college and get reputed jobs.

Maya Rani's oxen

There is good news Maya Rani wants to share. They bought a pair of oxen with the profit from the goats and a small loan from the group fund. Now ploughing the land will not be so hard. The oxen will also produce manure that will be used to fertilize. She hopes that the next crop will be profitable enough to lease some more land.

Her husband, who used  to be an alcoholic, is now better. He helps her out a lot with the animals and the farm. Maya feels she is step closer to the life she dreams for her sons.

Always There for the Women of Nepal

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A commitment to empower women is embedded in Heifer International’s core values for sustainable development. In honor of International Women’s Day on March 8, this week we’re sharing the stories of Heifer participants who take the gifts of animals and training and run with them to extraordinary results for themselves and their communities. Through hard work and innovations, each woman secures her rightful place in the family, the marketplace and the world.


Photo by Geoff Oliver Bugbee
Sita Poudel counsels women in the village of Belsi.
If a leader can be measured by the achievements of those she guides and inspires, then the record of Sita Poudel’s lifework is already off the charts. She received two goats in 1993 and has worked with Heifer International ever since. She started her own nongovernmental organization, the Women’s Group Coordination Committee in Chitwan, Nepal, which works with nearly 500 women’s groups in the country. Her warm heart and perseverance show how far two goats and a passion for helping others can take you.
Meena Chaudhary, of the Prakash Women’s Group in Belsi, said Poudel would not take “no” for an answer when she came to offer help to thelower-caste group of women. Even after being turned away dozens of times from the once extremely poor village, Poudel kept coming back.
“We are where we are today because of Sita’s guidance and support,” Chaudhary said. “We have learned from her that money is not the only thing that helps people. It’s the intention to do good and to help others.”
Poudel continues to raise goats, getting up at 4:30 a.m. daily to care for the animals and prepare breakfast for her family before spending all day, six days a week, working side by side with the women her organization supports. She said her reward is watching the transformation of the women she helps.
“When they smile at me and invite me into their houses and show me the life they have today because of all my hard work and theirs, it makes me want to go into a new place tomorrow and start all over again,” Poudel said.
Read more about Poudel in this World Ark article.

Buffalo 1, Buffalo 2, Buffalo 3

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Durga Koirala’s family are farm laborers. The family owns a set ofoxen for draft power. They are her only livestock. Owning oxen makes them alikely choice when landowners are looking for farm hands. Durga became a partof a Heifer project in 2011 and received a lactating buffalo. She has made agood income from the milk in the past couple of months. Durga also received improvedanimal management training from the project. She learned scientific ways ofhousing and feeding the buffalo to maximize milk production. The localCommunity Animal Health Worker (CAHW) also comes by often to check on itshealth and vaccinate. This support structure formed by the project, which alsotrains CAHW‘s and equips them to provide technical and medical support to beneficiariesand their communities.


Durga’s confidence has soared with the knowledge and support shehas received through the project. “I did not have any buffalos. But I am nowaiming to keep three buffalos and make the sale of milk my primary income,”Durga says, beaming. Her buffalo will soon have a calf making the number two.With the savings from the milk sale and a loan from the group fund, Durga hopesto make the number three.

Editor’s note: This post is part of a new series that follows the progress of specific families, starting at the beginning of their work with Heifer. Initially, this series will focus on our programs in Asia/South Pacific, where our colleagues have chosen one family in each region in the countries where we work and will bring us quarterly updates.