Finish Strong/Jump-Start! Support Nepal's Families

ETC's new project area in Ramdhuni Municipality, Sunsari District is located not so very far from Nepal's border with India. People regularly go back and forth between the two countries for personal reasons as well as to work or shop. Because of the open nature of that border and the high COVID rates in India, we became very concerned about the well-being of the people living in Ramdhuni - particularly those who can't afford basic health and safety supplies.

With that in mind, ETC recently partnered with local organization Save the Earth to purchase and distribute washable, reusable masks and three months' worth of soap to 1,500 marginalized families in Ramdhuni. We also provided some practical health training, focusing on helping children learn to wash their hands very thoroughly and providing information about how often to wash the masks. We were able to do this outdoors, over the course of about ten days, and therefore without undue crowding or exposure risk.

The project was a huge success on more than one level:

• First and foremost, it provided many hundreds of people with important resources to help them protect themselves from this insidious virus. Fortunately, these villages have not yet been hard-hit by COVID, and we very much want to keep it that way.
• Second, it served as a good introduction of ETC into these villages where we ought to have been working beginning in July, if not for the pandemic.
• Third, it was an excellent way to test-drive a partnership with Save the Earth. They have a long track record and a strong positive reputation in Ramdhuni already, and now that we have worked with them on this special project, we feel very good about the prospects of future collaboration.

You can see more photos of this project, as well as of our previous work in Dolakha, on our website. And we are working to determine what our next steps will be while COVID is still with us, based on what the most pressing needs are and what is possible to do while keeping our staff and the village residents safe. Exact activities are yet to be determined, but are likely to be centered on public health and agricultural development - because we do know that food security is a big problem in these villages.

There's so much of our usual work that we cannot do right now. Anything that has to happen in big groups or indoors, or that involves difficult transportation logistics, is pretty much off the menu. But we are choosing to focus on what we can do to help the people of Ramdhuni Municipality, even during these times of global pandemic, and we look forward to sharing it with you as we move forward together!

It is a massive understatement to say that nothing has been normal in recent months. That's been true worldwide, and Nepal is no exception.

The strict pandemic-related lockdown and mobility restrictions in Nepal were instituted in March and were eased up slightly beginning on June 14th, but are by no means fully lifted even now in mid-July. This has meant that none of ETC's usual springtime program activities, such as agricultural or teacher trainings, were able to be done on schedule. Nor were the schools with which we work able to re-open for their new school year in April.

Given that it is now summertime, the challenges of daily life in rural Nepal have become greater. Summer is monsoon season, and heavy rains mean washed-out roads and trails as well as mudslides. This can be especially problematic in a hilly area such as Dolakha.

You may also have read in the news about the swarms of locusts (some 8 million of them, by one estimate) that are destroying crops. These are concentrated in south-central Nepal and are not harming our Dolakha families' gardens at present, but of course they must know that this is happening elsewhere in the country, and they must be concerned.

Having said all that, there is still positive news to report. Because as they so often do, the Nepali people are demonstrating their remarkable resilience in the face of adversity!

In Dolakha, because ETC had almost completed our full program cycle of work, many of the skills and systems had had the chance to become deeply rooted. This groundwork has proved to be immensely important during the pandemic.

For example:

• Women's kitchen gardens and other farming activities are well established and thriving, providing a much-needed source of food security for their families while it has been impossible to go buy food elsewhere. The goverrnment has provided some staples, such as rice and lentils, but the amounts provided have not been sufficient to meet most families' needs. The fact that women are able to grow more food since becoming involved with ETC has been absolutely crucial for their families' well-being.
• The women's cooperatives' leaders are able to meet, which helps ensure that some of the good work being done by these cooperatives to support their nearly 1,000 members can go on. As you know, the cooperatives are the legally recognized, enduring structures formed from combining ETC's women's groups.
• Teachers and school staff feel motivated and empowered to help the children continue to learn, despite the major obstacles - because obviously families in rural Nepal don't have high-speed internet to do online lessons via Google Classrooms! One of the 30 schools in our current project area has now re-opened, with three shifts to ensure that the class sizes are small. The others, however, have not been able to do that. Instead, schools are broadcasting lessons over FM radio - most families either have a radio or at least have a near neighbor whose radio they can hear - and some teachers are visiting students' homes to do small-group, in-person lessons where that can be done while respecting the need for distancing.

We have never had to furlough or let go any staff members throughout all of this, very thankfully. And now that things are starting to open up a bit, they will be able to do what needs to be done in order to finish up properly in Dolakha District and then begin phasing into Sunsari District, once it is safe to do so. Yes, we are still intending to go work in Sunsari - it's just going to have to wait a bit longer than had been hoped and planned! The attached photo is of a family in one of the villages we will be serving there. It was taken by a staff member of Save the Earth, which will be our local project partner in Sunsari.

As always, we have you to thank for having made all of this possible. Thank you very, very much. So many people's lives are sustainably better because of your support.

Links:

• ETC's website
• ETC's YouTube channel
• ETC's Facebook page