Empower Feed Educate Single mother headed families

Dear Friends and kind donors,
Namaste!

Bahini Educare Foundation

Preamble:
Bahini Educare Foundation is 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 renewed every year.

Our Objective:
It is our declared objective to prevent the worst forms of abuse, discrimination and exploitation of girls and women in Nepal.

 EDUCATION is one of the main pillars in our objective to empower our beneficiaries by means of education and confidence building. Further job training and empowerment will be provided for those who are leaving school by our network-partner “LP4Y”. This will prepare them to be independent and free from discrimination and oppression.

Our Projects:

1)    Educare Families:
This is our signature project. The EduCare Family Project is an innovative, unique, pragmatic and efficient new approach to support the helpless, hopeless and the most vulnerable.

‘EduCare’ stands for Education, Healthcare, Food, Clothing, Hygiene, Counseling and Assistance & Protection whenever this is needed.

We are prioritizing the most vulnerable, namely girls and adolescents! However, boys are not explicitly excluded and it will always be situational when we are deciding to support boys.

With this project we are looking at supporting hundreds of families that are destitute and at high risk of worst forms of exploitation and abuse.

We are providing basic staple food as well as items for proper hygiene and sanitation. We are providing clothes, underwear and shoes two times a year and this according to the seasonal needs and school uniforms, bags and shoes.

All our beneficiaries are benefitting from a basic health-insurance covered by us and we provide further medical assistance if needed so.
To this end we are supporting 25 Educare Families with 81 beneficiaries.

OPTIMIZING-NETWORKING!
We are constantly aiming to improve and optimize our service and to this end we are putting strong emphasis on “NETWORKING”.

In one of our “Educare-Families” the mother was an HIV Patient. Since her physical condition got worse and she needed more care and support we referred this family to the organization “Star-Children-Pokhara”. This organization specializes in such cases and the family is now receiving adequate care and support.

Another of our Educare Families, a single mother with two dependent daughters has been referred to “SOS Bahini” and this mother along with her daughters has successfully been integrated into the IFAP program. The mother Dhani is now a caring and loving IFAP-family mother of the latest Family No.6

Nepal House:

This NGO is providing free professional psychotherapy for girls and young women that have been abused and traumatized.

LP4Y is our new network-partner:

Two of our beneficiaries joined the empowerment training provided by LP4Y in January 2020. Due to the pandemic the training had to be interrupted but we expect to offer this training to more of our beneficiaries in the future.

2)    Education Support:

We believe Education is the window to the world and that all children must be entitled to education! Therefore all children from marginalized families (orphans/semi orphans, poor parents, sick parents) are supported for education.

For all beneficiaries that receive Education support, we provide the following:
a)    School fees                                 
b)    Books and Stationary
c)    Uniform and Foot wares
d)    Raincoats/Umbrella

Currently, we are providing educational sponsorship to 37 beneficiaries: 26 girls and 11 boys.

3)    Advocacy for Women’s Health:
We advocate for women’s health by providing medical assistance, where possible and Awareness on health and Hygiene!
This year there has been very less activity on this front.

a)    First Aid training has been organized in our office premises for all the Educare Family mothers and their senior daughters. A total of 30 participants participated in this training.

b)    A general COVID19 awareness training was held in Lekhnath area (a total of 8 Educare families are supported by us). This is a slum area and health hygiene is quite neglected here.

c)    Masks and gloves have been distributed to our families in 3 phases.

d)    Period Without Shame:

This has been our regular program since 2019. We choose government schools that are devoid of good menstrual practices.

We organized an awareness program for young girls in ‘Bhramaroopa Higher Secondary school in Lekhnath at the beginning of the year. 25 girls aged 10-15 were made aware of menstruation and hygiene related to this. This was supposed to be followed up by another session but the COVID 19 hampered it.

e)     Health Insurance:

Under the initiation of the government of Nepal, we have provided ‘health insurance’ for all our Educare Families. For a family of 5, it costs Rs. 3500 and this insurance is covering medical costs and service for up to Rs. 50,000 per year.

Our families have been making good use of this facility. Recently a mother of a family was in need of surgery in her right hand (she was unable to work) it was done with less than ten thousand rupees, which in private hospital would cost her more than Seventy thousand rupees!

4)    Improved Cooking Stove:

For many families in Nepal, using a gas stove is quite a luxury. The gas stove and cylinders are quite expensive. Some of them use them, but many are still using traditional mud stoves that use a lot of fire wood and emit carbon mono oxide which is health hazardous.

We are tackling this issue by providing more fuel-efficient improved Cooking stoves that helps in usage of less fire wood, subsequently, burning smaller amounts wood fuel means less smoke will engulf their homes and their lungs. No stoves could be distributed this year.

Our TEAM:

Our TEAM consists of two full times and one part-time employee all of which are all-rounders. We work six days a week and we are available around the clock for the case of any emergencies.

Conclusion:

Our programs are professionally organized and implemented. All our beneficiaries are safe, healthy and thriving and very grateful for our support. We are appreciated and respected by the communities, the local government agencies, NGOs’ and Government authorities.

We are witnessing extraordinary positive changes in all our beneficiaries and we are determined to extend our support to many more of the most underprivileged children and single mothers in Nepal.

Activities in Numbers:

MEALS: 28.375 nutritious meals
Clothes: 164 sets of warm winter clothes and caps
Shoes: 82 pairs of shoes and socks
Soap: 20.500 pieces
Shampoo: 80.000 doses
Sanitary pads: 4.896
Toothbrushes: 924
Toothpaste: 630
Face masks: 2.460
Education-support: for 119 children
Medical-support/advise: for 86 beneficiaries

2020 has been a difficult year for us all but we can only hope and remain optimistic for 2021 and the years to come. More importantly for the underprivileged and that we are caring for.

Thank you for your kindness and generous donations. It keeps us motivated and helps us achieve our aims and objectives.

Namaste!