Children's Protection Programme in South Nepal

It has been an incredible couple of months - very busy but we managed to help many girls and communities. 

Our staff now are working really closely with the local Female Community Health Volunteers and the results are amazing. The volunteers inform us about any cases of girls that might need our assistance, and they also help us with the coordination of community training sessions on domestic violence and child marriage. 

Thanks to Kushalta, our Education Officer, the girls are doing so well with their studies and those that started attending school are really enjoying their time there. 

We are just finalising our plans for a good quality tailoring/pattern cutting training pilot. We have had delays to this part of the project due to scarcity of good quality trainers but it seems very soon we will be able to provide the girls skills that are not readily available in Nepal. This should help with their employment opportunities in the future. 

We will soon be releasing a video showing our work on the project and stories of some of our girls. We cannot wait to be able to show it to you all. 

We are also starting our new project, End to Child Marriage – this will form a part of our Children Protection Programme. 1 in 2 girls in Province 2 get married when they are still children. It is illegal but sadly a very common practice in the area. We will be starting our activities from next year and will keep you all updated. 

 Thank you so much for all the support so far. We couldn’t continue our activities without this support. Thank you.

Following my recent visit to Nepal I am really excited to report on the incredible progress our girls are making and the wonderful work our staff are delivering on the ground. The library at the shelter is looking great and is being used by the girls all the time. They study there, then sometimes watch programmes, relax, do all their art activities - I even found one of our dogs, Brownie, relaxing in the cupboard there a couple of times.

We are very lucky with the space at the shelter and the girls also have a separate large room to do their tailoring classes. We are soon getting another professional tailoring trainer so that they can improve their skills even more. We are also looking into the training to be provided to women from the community that face hardship. 

Our outreach work is getting better and better now - we are working closer with the community female health volunteers who are based in many villages across the Province and they inform us of any cases of girls that might need our assistance, either at the shelter or within the community. 

When we visited, we took the girls for a few outings to parks, playgrounds and local villages. The most enjoyable trip for them was visiting projects of a great local charity, Mithila Wildlife Trust that are being supported by our sister charity, Pipal Tree. We saw new forests being planted using their new Miyawaki method, bird park, theri community learning centres and a lot of nature. Girls (and us) were so excited to meet a rescue baby antelope and feed some monkeys on the site. Now, the girls really want to go back there and spend more time in the jungle - so we'll be arranging that shortly. 

The school year is starting in Nepal now so some of our girls are joining a school near the shelter and those that have been linked back with the families are starting their classes near their homes. We are really proud of them, for the majority of them it will be the first time they get a chance to attend school. 

Thank you so much for all the support - the project would not be possible with that!