Empower Feed Educate Single mother headed families

       ANNUAL REPORT 2022

BAHINI EDUCARE FOUNDATION

Preamble:

Bahini Educare Foundation is an “NGO”, a Non-profit and Non-governmental organization. It was officially established in 2014. It has been registered with the District Administration Office, Kaski (Registered Number: 3154/2070/71), affiliated with the Social Welfare Council (Affiliation Number: 38527/2070/71) and with the NGO Federation (Registered Number 129) and is duly renewed every year.

VISION IN ACTION:

We have a vision and our vision is based on core values such as: optimism versus pessimism, empathy versus indifference, service versus selfishness, peace versus violence. We are sharing this vision with our partner-organizations, donors and all those that are supporting our work.

It is our vision that the worst forms of abuse, violence and exploitations on girls and women in Nepal will diminish and eventually be eradicated. That child marriage, bonded labor, forced prostitution, trafficking into the sex-trade and other worst forms of abuse on a large scale will no longer be an intolerable and a sad reality in Nepal!

For many centuries rigid patriarchal structures and a petrified religious belief system forced the female gender into demeaning submission.

We emphasize with our target groups who are the most vulnerable in Nepal, destitute widows/single mothers with dependent daughters and we are taking concrete action to abolish the root-cause for immeasurable suffering; namely utter poverty and ignorance!

ACTION-with a VISION: “Pragmatic-Direct-Efficient”

EduCare stands for education and care.

First and foremost, the basic needs of a human being have to be met before we can think of education. Attending school barefoot, in rags and on an empty stomach is not an option. The life of our target-groups is too demanding, the hard realities too hard to even consider education.

We make sure that the basic needs of our beneficiaries are met. To this end we are providing them with staple food, appropriate clothing for all seasons, medical care, hygiene-products, education, job-training and livelihood-skill training.

We are not institutionalizing our beneficiaries and we are supporting them in whatever conditions they live in; in a simple hut in the villages or in the slums around the city of Pokhara. We are only providing what is necessary to lift them out of a degrading and paralyzing poverty and thus we are creating a minimum of dependency. Our beneficiaries are not receiving any money from us and we encourage, empower and assist them on their way to self-sufficiency and independence.

We help them to gradually improve their living condition and we are encouraging and assisting them to leave the slums and move to safer neighborhoods.

BEF as CONNECTORS:

When disaster struck them, the families that we are supporting have been disconnected from society, they lived like outcasts and they were caught in a downward spiral ending in “MISERY”. We are acting as “CONNECTORS”, and we are connecting “Life with Life”, connecting what is with what could be and we are creating conditions conducive to life.

When the children are joining school they are connecting and when mothers are working they are connecting, and this is the most important link for a life in independence.

Only when connecting and bonding can human beings find the hope and the confidence that is required for a life in independence. We are reframing their life, for them to find meaning in their existence.

Thus we help them become free of the vicious cycle of ignorance, poverty and submission that has lasted for too many generations of girls and women in Nepal.

Our unique approach is pragmatic, down to earth, efficient, and cost-effective and it will ultimately lead to “SUSTAINABILITY” and this on an individual as well as a collective level.

OBJECTIVELY VERIFIABLE RESULTS:

Since we first implemented this program a total of 47 families have been admitted. Over the years 15 of these families have been reintegrated and are now self-sufficient.

To date, December 2022, a total of 32 families have remained under the wings of our organization.

 Facts & figures for 2022:

# Number of families admitted:        10
# Number of families reintegrated:   02        
# Current number of families:          30        

We are proud to be able to report that we didn’t have a single incident of child-marriage, rape or trafficking amongst our beneficiaries and our main objective, the prevention of these crimes has been fully achieved.

As shown in our monthly reports: “Family of the month” all the beneficiaries under our care are safe, filled with hope, thriving and confident and all of them were able to make the leap from despair, fear and hopelessness to hope, confidence and self-respect.

They are the living proof, that our simple but all-encompassing strategy is working and that “BEF” is successfully liberating and empowering the most underprivileged and at risk in Nepal, destitute widows/single mothers with dependent daughters.

HEALTH AND AWARENESS-PROGRAMS:

In addition the following programs have been conducted and in cooperation with our relevant network-partners:

1. Education and Scholarship:           120 Children
2. Vocational training and Life Skill Training:  

a) 2 Girls completed life skill training in our partner organization LP4Y in Kathmandu

b) 1 girl is enrolled in a government funded civil engineering course

c) 1 girl is enrolled in life skill training

d) 1 girl is interning in a hotel after training in LP4Y, while 2 girls and 1 boy are working after completing their education/training.

3. Prevention of CHILD-MARRIAGE: 2 girls have been prevented from likely getting married after a long gap in schooling due to lockdown. They were counseled and admitted to another school.

4. Advocacy for Women’s Health:
a) 120 girls for Dignified Menstruation & Menstrual Hygiene

b) 35 young girls for Sexual Awareness “Good Touch, Bad Touch”

5. Annual Health Camp:
a) 200 women and children

b) 32 families are benefitting from health insurance

6. First Aid Awareness: 140 women and young girls

7. Sleeping Bags Distribution: 70 sleeping bags

8. Women Empowerment/ Participation 500 + beneficiaries

Networking:

As “CONNECTORS” we are part of a large network including over 30 NGO’s, INGO’s, social workers, nurses, doctors, lawyers and volunteers from all walks of life. According to their need we are able to connect our beneficiaries to a large and interconnected system and an array of people with expertise in the diverse fields of social work.

In this way, a strong synergy effect has been created and we can extend our help beyond our proper radius of action.

OBJECTIVES FOR THE YEAR 2023

It is our objective to up the ante and admit 10 more “EduCare-Families” in the year 2023.

Moreover, we are always thriving to optimize and improve every aspect of our work. We are adhering to the principle called “Micro Excellence”, a simple method to improve one aspect of your work by 1% each day.

 Our donors, partners and friends:

As mentioned above we are planning to add 10 more EduCare-Families in the coming year. This can only be done due to the strong commitment and the pledge for long-term support by our donors.

This is remarkable given the actual global crisis and the fact that donations generally decreased considerably over the past two years.

This is the proof that our work is convincing an increasing number of donors and for us, this is very encouraging and inspiring.

On this note we would like to express our gratitude to our friends and our donor-community for their increasing support and their allegiance to our common cause.

As “CONNECTORS” we are connecting each and every one from our donor-community to our beneficiaries and thus the “Vicious Cycle of poverty, exclusion and exploitation”, is transformed into a “Magical-Cycle of inclusion, empowerment, self-sufficiency and sustainability.”

All of you, our donors and benefactors are the key to this magic and a vital part in our common endeavor to stop worst forms of violence and exploitation on girls and women in Nepal.

Only together we can do and we as “CONNECTERS” are grateful to be an essential part in this “SCENARIO” for a better Nepal.

This is not a time for complacency, let us continue and increase our efforts, many more are desperately waiting for help!

Our vision is right, our action is right, our donor-community is right and for our beneficiaries it is RIGHT!

It’s simple, it’s simply “Bahini-EduCare-Foundation”

Surendra, Raymond & the TEAM

• Annual_Report_BEF_2022.pdf (PDF)