Tag Archives: Nepal

Honoring Heifer’s Women Participants: Ganga Khanal, Nepal

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Editor’s Note: Acommitment to empower women is embedded in Heifer International’score values for sustainable development. In honor of International Women’s Dayon Thursday, March 8, this week we’re sharing the stories of Heifer participants who takethe gifts of animals and training and run with them to extraordinary resultsfor themselves and their communities. Through hard work and innovations, eachwoman secures her rightful place in the family, the marketplace and the world.


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Video by Geoff Oliver Bugbee and Puja Singh

Ganga Khanal of Jirouna, Nepal describes herself as stubborn, driven and outspoken, traditionally not celebrated qualities in a Nepali woman.

Her fierce spirit grew all the stronger after a heart-breaking early married life full of betrayal and blame.Her first two children were daughters, and her husband and mother-in-law turned on her, blaming her for the lack of a son. Her husband hit her when she spoke up, and her mother-in-law encouraged him. She never had enough to eat.

But she would not accept that life of poverty and pain. She heard about a women’s group looking for a new group of women to receive Heifer animals and knowledge through the practice of Pass on the Gift. Armed with that sliver of hope, she rallied her neighbors.

“I said, ‘Let’s do something. We are very poor people. We lease other people’s goats and raise them. If someone is willing to give us goats for free, why wouldn’t we take that opportunity?’” Khanal said.

Despite bitter opposition from her husband, she formed the Jagrit Women’s Group and received two black and white goats and training in Heifer’s 12 Cornerstones.

“Today I am something,” Khanal said. “I have substance; I have animals; I have crops. … If you have the backup of the whole group, the trust of the group, there is nothing you can’t do.”

Khanal now sits on the executive board of a larger cooperative of women’s groups that owns and operates a commodities store where the women can sell their own produce.

Her husband came around too, a few months after she received her goats and a loan from the group savings. “He started helping me in the farm and with the animals. We were making enough money to get us by.

“I believed what I was doing would result in a bright future for my family,” she said. “So I didn’t lose faith. I didn’t give up.”Khanal is hopeful her efforts will mean a better future for all her six children, four girls and two boys.

“I used to be guilty as well in believing it was more important to educate or provide for my sons than for my daughters,” she said. “But the trainings changed all that for me. Today, my daughter is in the army. My daughter has made me realize and understand that girls are no less than boys.”

Her son, Sudip, learned that same lesson from Khanal. “I have so much respect for these women who have created opportunities for people like me. The future looks bright for us because of our moms.”

To read the full article about Khanal in World Ark magazine, click here. Below, Khanal shares what her life is like now.

Ganga – A Leader in the Making

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Ganga Ale, 41 is an active member of a Heifer project in Tanahu, Nepal. She received 5 goats from Heifer along with training on Heifer’s Cornerstones, group management, improved animal management, gender and commercial vegetable production. Ganga was specially touched by the Cornerstones. Her confidence increased after the training, having found a new sense of purpose.


Ganga is one of the few fortunate women in this rural community to have had the opportunity to go to school. She has completed the 8th grade, making her the most educated women in the group and perhaps in the community. “I felt like I had a greater responsibility towards my group members and the village. I have education as a tool to help them excel,” says Ganga explaining her sense of purpose. She has been very active in her community speaking for women and for small farmers. She hopes to do more in the future.


Ganga’s daughter, Yamuna (18), says, “I am proud of my mother. She is very active socially.” Ganga’s husband Kesh Bahadur, 42, also supports Ganga’s new purpose in life. “She has always fulfilled her responsibility towards her family. I encourage her to do the same for her community.”


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.

Yes! Invest in Agricultural Research to Feed the World

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Photo by Dave Anderson
Isaya and Restituta Mlewa at their Tanzanian organic farm.

Bill Gates’ 2012 annual letter “is an argument for making the choice to keep on helping extremely poor people build self-sufficiency.”

In an interview with the U.K.’s MSN news, Gates explains that his hope for the letter is that it “helps people connect to the choice we all have to make. Relatively small investments changed the future for hundreds of millions of small farm families. The choice now is this: Do we continue those investments so that the 1 billion people who remain poor benefit? Or do we tolerate a world in which one in seven people is undernourished, stunted and in danger of starving to death?

“In times of tight budgets, we have to pick our priorities,” Gates continues. “It’s clear that in this particular time, we’re in danger of deciding that aid to the poorest is not one of them. I am confident, however, that if people understand what their aid has already accomplished—and its potential to accomplish so much more—they’ll insist on doing more, not less. That is why I wrote my letter.”

At Heifer, our supporters, donors, staff members and participants around the world say Amen! and pass the tomatoes to spreading the gospel on how small investments (in our case heifers, goats, bees or tree seedlings), can stop hunger in the short-term and create sustainable income in the long-term. Every day we see investments in small farm families empower them beyond subsistence to create a chain of self-sufficiency that lifts up entire communities.

Heifer works with the Gates Foundation on the East Africa Dairy Development project that not only connects dairy farmers to markets, but links public and private interests including banks and investors, to create a growing local economy based on agriculture.

In his letter, Gates emphasizes not only innovations in agricultural production, but also in creative partnerships to better feed the world. “I am excited because innovative partnerships that capitalize on the comparative advantages of all these players can accelerate progress, speeding the transition beyond aid for many poor countries.”

Heifer shares similar goals with the Gates Foundation, including a focus on investing in women, preserving land for future generations and developing innovations in the field that engage the people we are trying to help in making the best decisions for their land, culture, sustainability and environment.

Isaya and Restituta Mlewa, shown above, and featured in this World Ark magazine article, are proof that participants have innovations of their own to add. From the gift of one dairy cow and Heifer training in dairy and organic farming, the couple came up with their own systems using animal and plant waste that are now an example for the thousands of farmers they have trained across Africa.

In Nepal, the Heifer project community of Shaktikhor, through a Farmer Field School, did their own research into feed varieties and care that improved the health and increased the weight of goats throughout the community. Their innovations were shared and picked up by other Heifer project communities in Nepal.

At a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland today, Gates said “innovations in crop science, access to information for farmers and new models of cooperation between governments and private enterprises are some of the developments that can improve global food security,” he said. “I believe the opportunity to double or even triple (food) productivity is there.”

Join the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Heifer International in promoting the value of investments in agriculture around the world to end hunger and poverty.

Heifer Launches New Project in Nepal

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There’s some exciting news coming from Nepal. Tomorrow, Friday, Heifer will formally launch a new $23.8 million project there, helping families band together to emerge from hunger and poverty.


Thuli Maya Lama, 45, of Juretthhum, Nepal.
This project will work in 28 districts to build up goat and dairy enterprises over the course of five years. Demand for these products is high in Nepal, but the country depends on imports to satisfy the need. By strengthening local production, Heifer hopes to reduce the number of goats being imported into Nepalby about 30 percent by the year 2016, and reduce milk imports by 10 percent.

This is an expansion of Heifer’s work helping thousands of Nepalese people move from vulnerability to self-reliance. The project aims to teach families how to produce more meat and milk by managing their animals more carefully. Then, Heifer plans to help participants forge trade alliances. By forming community groups and cooperatives, farmers can better connect with buyers.

The Nepal project will employ Heifer’s unique holistic training system to empower its participants for the long term. In addition to learning how to properly care for their animals, participants will be educated in areas like money management, gender equality, literacy, community collaboration and entrepreneurship.

With that foundation, small-scale farmers can not only feed their ownfamilies, but also work together to find larger markets for more dairy products.

Heifer International has worked in Nepal since 1977 to reduce poverty and build sustainable family enterprises with animals like sheep, goats, ducks and water buffalo. Now Heifer is confident that in areas of Nepal with dire poverty, its new goat and dairy project can create transformative and lasting change.

Capacity Development in Development – Means or End?

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A group level training in Heifer Cornerstones being held in the village of Khayarmara in Mohattari district of Nepal.  Photo by Puja Singh

by Puja Singh — Heifer Nepal 

The more one keeps up with the news and tries to understand the world’s poverty situation, the more it feels like unfortunate incidents are recurring. Natural disasters, famine and environment exploitations reoccur in the same areas where development goals were said to have been achieved. The 2010 famine in the Horn of Africa seemed all too familiar to the non-governmental organizations who rushed to the rescue. This brings about the question – What is missing?

Maybe a crucial component of development is addressed and accredited far less than it deserves. Let me introduce you to a new term: Capacity Development. Although a pertinent part of development work, capacity development as a term and a process seems to be lost in all the other big words and processes. It creeps up here and there, but is never a focus. A recent blog, Capacity building – isn’t that what development is all about? by Jonathan Glennie reminds us of the important role that capacity development plays in sustainable development. The World Bank defines sustainable development as “Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” There is no way this can happen without capacity development.

Heifer understands the importance of capacity development and has incorporated it as a major component of its projects. Most of the project’s budget and time is dedicated to capacity building trainings and discussions. Participants are trained in animal management, values-based management, financial management, etc. This has been credited by many evaluators including Western Michigan University as the reason behind Heifer’s success at the grassroots level. Heifer’s signature mechanism of Passing on the Gift™ assures that capacity continues to be developed within the community even without external intervention. Heifer’s trainings like the Cornerstones and gender equity continue to be transferred informally long after the funding stops. Isn’t this the ultimate goal of all our development work — that the work continues even after aid has stopped? Capacity development assures that this will happen.    

Puja Singh is Heifer’s Nepal-based communications officer. You can follow her on Twitter here. 

Pick a Chick on Cyber Monday

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It’s Cyber Monday. Don’t let your boss catch you surfing the web for the best deal on a TV. Instead, let her know you’re spending your holiday savings ending world hunger. Pick a chick this Cyber Monday!

For just $20, a gift of chicks, ducks or geese can quickly turn into a sizable flock that can triple a family’s income. The fowl are easily managed as they require little space, and they can help control garden pests and improve soil quality. And through Heifer’s Pass on the Gift model, your gifts will continue to change communities for years to come. Can’t say that about the latest e-reader, now can you?

Photo by Geoff Oliver Bugbee

Anju Chaudhary lost everything she owned when a sudden flood struck her town of Bhandara, Nepal, several years ago. Not long after, Anju’s husband left the house one day and never came back. Anju suddenly found herself all alone with two little children to feed. That’s when she joined a local women’s group, and soon she received the gift of a chicken, which quickly produced eggs and chicks. Anju fed some of the eggs to her children and sold the rest for income. She now has 16 eggs ready to hatch. “We’ll have lots of chickens soon,” Anju says proudly.


Eggs
One large chicken egg contains more than six grams of protein, which the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization indicates is about half the daily requirement for toddlers. Both chicken and duck eggs contain selenium, which helps build a strong immune system, and B vitamins that help convert food into energy. Plus, chickens and ducks can lay nearly 200 eggs a year.

More Land and Better Crops
Chickens, ducks and geese require little space, so families who have only small plots to farm can maximize what they plant. The fowl eat insects and remove weeds as well, which increases crop yields and provides more food to sell at market or to feed their families.

Increased Income
In addition to providing hundreds of eggs a year or hundreds of chicks, ducklings and goslings to sell at market, these animals thrive on food and garden scraps. That means families don’t have to spend a lot of money to feed the fowl, enabling them to pay for food, education and medicine.

Want to really impress your boss? Give her a Flock of Hope this holiday season. And if it doesn’t already, encourage your organization to participate in our employer matching gifts program, turning your $20 or $60 gift into twice as many birds. Read more blog posts about how Heifer uses fowl to improve lives around the world.

Don’t feel like picking a chick? How about an alpaca, sheep, heifer or goat?

On International Day of the Disappeared, A Story of Healing

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Today is the International Day of the Disappeared – a day dedicated to awareness of those who disappear in connection with armed conflict or other violence. On their website, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) states that relatives of missing persons “suffer immensely as they struggle to find out what became of the missing person.” They go on to say…

More needs to be done to help the thousands of families of missing persons. On 30 August, the International Day of the Disappeared, the ICRC is highlighting their plight, and explaining what the organization is doing to help.

In Nepal, Heifer International and the ICRC are working together to provide rehabilitation and healing to the families affected psychologically and economically by conflicts in that nation. Our teammates in Nepal created the video below to tell this story. 

Anywhere Leaders of Heifer and the World

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by Puja Singh
Mike Thompson, the writer of the book “The Anywhere Leader,” just finished the Nepal end of his Heifer trip. His quest for anywhere leaders who achieve their goals despite challenging circumstances took him to rural Nepal. In Itahari, Belsi, Shaktikhor and Palpa, he met Heifer participants who – given their limited education, cultural barriers and economic situations – showed individual and collective leadership that changed their lives for the better. His book focuses on developing leaders who can succeed in any environment. In Nepal – a world away from where he wrote his book – he found examples. 
Traits of The Anywhere Leader: driven for progress, sensationally curious and vastly resourceful applies to leaders in rural Nepal and the leaders who lead the most successful companies in the US and the world. Leadership – says Mike, the CEO of SVI who also authored another book on leadership, The Organizational Champion — is primarily about the mindset. 
In his blog Mike explains how Heifer participants are an embodiment of anywhere leaders as stated in his book. Drawing references to his leadership model, Mike makes an excellent argument. 
Stay tuned as this soul searcher, author and the leader of his company heads to China to meet more anywhere leaders.  

Puja Singh is a Nepal-based communications officer for Heifer International. You can follow her on Twitter at jade_puja.

Heifer Saves Woman’s Life and Helps Put Her on Leadership Path

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Author Mike Thompson has made it to Nepal. He’s already met our hospitable staff, Puja and Suman, and yesterday he posted on his blog about Sabrita Guraguin, a participant of Heifer’s Nepal program whose life went from utter despair to genuine prosperity after receiving a water buffalo and extensive training from Heifer. Read her story on Thompson’s blog to learn more about how Sabrita exemplifies three of Thompson’s Anywhere Leader principles.

More Than Business as Usual

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Post by Puja Singh, Heifer Nepal

Video by Geoff Oliver Bugbee, with Puja Singh as translator

Social Entrepreneurs Women’s Cooperatives are run by businesswomen from former Heifer International self-help groups who are determined to put the “social” back into social enterprises. Many business cooperatives in Nepal have a shady reputation. Although the objective for most of them as stated in their articles of association is to work for the good of the community, most are focused only on making a profit and serving a few.

Enter a cooperative formed of small-scale farmer families, represented by the women in those families. What’s different? These cooperatives have geared themselves to be true to the ideology of a cooperative, to serve the community first. Twenty three of these cooperatives are now fully functional in seven districts. They are working to voice their community’s needs, build a rapport and earn the trust of local governments and other resource providers.

The ball started rolling when the Kabasoti and Shantikunja women’s cooperatives each received a grant of 100,000 Nepalese rupees (about $1,400) from the government’s cooperative division to run fair-price consumer shops more than a year ago. The government’s District Agriculture Development Office has licensed almost all of the women’s cooperatives in Chitwan and Nawalparasi to distribute agricultural fertilizer.

Shantikunja women’s cooperative of Jirouna has now started a vermin-composting business and is expanding the production to more households. All the fertilizer produced will then be sold through the cooperative’s fertilizer shop. Cornerstones women’s cooperative is carving a niche on poultry farming. Fifteen members have already started their own co-ops. More are preparing to start.

“These cooperatives are extremely dedicated to their community. They are transparent and are run by the farmers themselves. We are confident that by distributing through them instead of a private company, we will avoid problems of swindling, hiked prices and artificial shortages caused by hoarding,” said Laxman Pokharel, the Chief of the Chitwan District Agricultural Development Office.

In other support, the Nepal Soil Conversation Office in Nawalparasi provided a grant of of 80,000 Nepalese rupees (about $1,120) to the Ganjyoti women’s cooperative for organic turmeric farming. The village development committee of Kabasoti provided 40,000 Nepalese rupees (about $560) for training to the Kabasoti women’s cooperative. The Buffer Zone Program of Pithaulie gave 15,000 Nepalese rupees ($210) to the Digopan cooperative. By channeling the money through the cooperatives, these entities are assured of just distribution and sustainable impact.

A leading private bank, has provided Sarvangin women’s cooperative with a loan of 1,000,000 Nepalese rupees (about $14,000) without collateral, to buy buffaloes for 15 members. “Their enterprise skills and confidence are so inspiring. The cities are now saturated. These rural areas and rural entrepreneurs are the next big thing that commercial banks need to invest in to bring about the next economic boom,” said Ashoke SJB Rana, the CEO of Himalayan Bank Limited. The bank is currently processing another loan for another women’s cooperative and plans to invest significantly in the women’s cooperatives.

The Social Entrepreneurs Women’s Cooperatives’ expanding network of members also help to communicate messages regarding community health on topics such as domestic violence, flu outbreaks or vaccination schedules. The Ratnanagar municipality appointed the Shantikunja cooperative as a coordinator of its women’s violence prevention desk. Its effectiveness has doubled since, as the cooperative uses its network of women members to report and take action against violence against women. Here again the network of women prove crucial to making things happen. Radio Chitwan FM broadcasts a cooperative education program twice a month in coordination with Shantikunja and Sarwangin cooperatives that helps encourage other farmers to take larger steps toward self-reliance.

The cooperatives in Chitwan and Nawalparasi are now combined into two cooperative district unions, these women have more opportunities for coordinating with the government at all levels. Heifer Nepal helped establish the cooperatives through the families and groups it worked with. Now more families are joining in and more values based women’s cooperatives are being formed all over Nepal. Heifer Nepal envisions that soon these groups will take over the work of their community’s economic and social development in coordination with the government, giving life to Abraham Lincoln’s words, “of the people, by the people for the people.”

Read the World Ark article on women’s cooperatives in Nepal, and revisit the story of transformation of Heifer participant Ganga Khanal, a member of the Shantikunja women’s cooperative. View a short video update below with Khanal this year to learn about her personal progress in Jirouna, Nepal.

To see Ganga Khanal’s first World Ark video from November 2009, click here.