One of three objectives of our work is economic empowerment which means that communities are able to pursue sustainable livelihood options for reduced poverty. The outcome of our work in this field are enhanced nutrition and household food security, increased household income and increased investment in basid need and well-being, as well as reduced risk and vulnerabilities for improved livelihood security.
Economic Empowerment
Agro-Eco Tourism Learning Center and Homestay
Project title: Machhapuchhre Agro-Eco Tourism Learning Center and Homestay
Goal: Sustainable livelihood of small farmers that ensures social and economic well being of their households
Location and outreach: 71 farmers supported for homestay based tourism promotion of Tusse village in Machhapuchhre Rural Municipality of Pokhara District.
Farmers of Tusse, Machhapuchhre Rural Municipality Ward-1 have now adapted IPM practices. Caritas Nepal (CN) succeeded to persuade them for cultivating organic vegetables through IPM technologies which not only helped them to produce healthy crops but their production rate also increased massively.
With an objective to create additional source of income and employment opportunities to the farmers, Caritas Nepal’s IPM program funded by Caritas Australia (CA) and Australian Aid has initiated, “Machhapuchhre Agro-Eco Tourism Learning Center and Homestay”, project targeting the farmers prosperity.
Aiming to encourage rural farmers, foreigners and students to visit the center and learn on advance eco-friendly agriculture practices/technologies will motivate visitors to replicate practices at their farm for better and healthy production.
61 farmers and their families are expected to improve the agriculture marketing system for strengthening their livelihood security. Since 2008 with the establishment of Baraha Agriculture Cooperative, CN has been promoting farmers organic production with the minimum use of chemical pesticides.
This project has aimed to boost the economic prosperity of farmers by motivating them for optimum utilization of CN interventions. 500 guests can be accommodated in a day with the support of project budget around 6 million.
Government officials praised the unique and remarkable efforts on upgrading the livelihood security of farmer around 17 km far from Pokhara. Also assured to help and support in future days as the organization is working its best for meeting the communities need.
Cooperative Development and Enterprise Promotion Project (CDEPP)
Goal: Cooperative and enterprise groups and rural women work in an organized manner to effectively reduce poverty and improve social situation (women’s rights, child rights, environmental preservation, and HIV/AIDS).
Participants and location: 32 cooperatives and their members. The cooperatives are present in seven districts- Lalitpur, Kavrepalanchowk, Nawalparashi, Bardiya, Banke, Kailali, and Kanchanpur. Total participants: Altogether, 26,289 people reached through 32 cooperatives among them 5,757 are children (3,185 girl) and 16,016 are female.
Caritas Nepal’s social mobilization and community organization approach includes two main strategies. First is to animate people to develop confidence to work together as small groups to bring about social and economic changes. Later many of these groups of a particular location are encouraged to form village wide cooperatives to bring about wider economic and social development.
In this way, Caritas Nepal has formed new community based cooperatives in some locations, and in other locations Caritas Nepal has strengthened existing cooperatives of poor and vulnerable people. Caritas Nepal has formed and/or strengthened more than 150 cooperatives till date. The cooperatives have been strengthened to provide effective micro-finance services in the communities and to promote enterprises based on business plan model. Cooperative development, management, accounts, leadership and education trainings have helped the cooperative leaders to manage their organization with high level of good governance and accountability. Cooperative members have also been trained to analyze social concerns and take up community wide campaigns for social transformation.
Integrated Pest Management (IPM)
Goal: Sustainable livelihood of small farmers that ensures the social and economic well-being of their households.
Location and outreach: 111 wards of 59 Rural Municipalities and Municipalities of 29 districts. 13,126 small holder farmers (8,679 women) in 265 groups. Small holder farmers who have less than one hector of land, households facing food insecurity, households living in poverty or having low-income status are the beneficiaries of the programme.
Interventions approach: Farmer Field Schools in IPM in rice and vegetables and IPM adoption package to improve crop yields, food and nutrition security; promotion of organic practices and biological control; marketing collection center support; and training agriculture students for IPM extension.
Livelihood Promotion Project (LPP)
Goal: Improve livelihoods of poor households by enabling them to make business plans and to develop effective strategies to access market.
Location and participants: Chinchu and Gadi village of Surkhet district. Total – 38 female farmers.
Nepal’s population is 29 million with a growth rate of 1.35% per year. About one fourth of the households live below the poverty line. Only about 10% of Nepali adults have taken bank loans (WB 2013). Nutritional status of about half the population is not satisfactory (13.7% wasting, 31.1% underweight, 41.5% stunting-Agriculture Development Strategy of Agriculture Ministry – ADS). Poverty has led to exodus of men to access labour and low skill work in the middle-east and other regions. Women have also migrated to access work abroad and fallen victims to trafficking.
Rural people are dependent on subsistence agriculture for survival. There is very limited opportunity for off farm employment. The rural households do not have access to opportunities for wider enterprise development. While opportunities for enterprises exist based on resource and market context of the various locations, lack of skill and capital is a constraint. Deforestation and climate change has added additional risks to farming and communities.
Caritas Nepal had implemented “Nepal in Cooperative and Enterprise- NICE” project in this location of Surkhet and other locations with the support of Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand (2013-15). Building on the experience of the NICE project to improve livelihoods of poor households, this project has been developed. The project is pilot testing technologies and processes to enable people to more effectively improve their livelihoods and access market.
Smallholder Adaptive Farming and Biodiversity Network (SAFBIN)
Goal: End Hunger, and Promote Nutrition and Food Security through Sustainable Agriculture and Adaptation to Climate Change in South Asia
Location in Nepal: Nawalparasi, Bardia, Banke and Surkhet: 27 locations of 13 Municipality/ Rural Municipality.
Caritas partners in South Asia have come together once again with the facilitation of Caritas Austria to develop a new Programme SAFBIN II (Smallholder Adaptive Farming and Biodiversity Network), after the successful implementation of SAFBIN (Strengthening Adaptive Farming in Bangladesh, India, and Nepal) from 2011 to 2016. Caritas Pakistan joined the programme as the new member in the network. The programme was officially inaugurated on 11th June 2018 during the Caritas Asia Regional Conference in Bangkok. Mr. Michael Roy (Secretary General of Caritas Internationalis), Mr. Christoph Schweifer (Secretary General of Caritas Austria), Mr. Francis Atul Sarkar (ED of Caritas Bangladesh) Mr. Amjad Gulzar (ED of Caritas Pakistan), Fr. Krishna Bahadur Bogati (ED of Caritas Nepal), Bishop. Lumen Monteiro (Chairman of Caritas India) Mr. Fred Leuner (Head of Asia of Caritas Switzerland), and Mr. Zar Gomez (Regional Coordinator of Caritas Asia) inaugurated the programme jointly in a novel way by sharing the symbols of Caritas.
The progamme will be implemented in the field locations from the second half of 2018. It hopes to build on successful practices identified and adopted by farmers for climate change adaptation in SAFBIN I, and further take forward the small farmers to realize sustainable agriculture. This will be done by enhancing the individual small holder farmers’ systems and community’s systems for production, marketing, consumption, and for risk reduction in regards to climate change and other disaster risks.