The Chepang, a historically marginalized indigenous community of Nepal, remains at the bottom of the human development index. They have little to no socio-political and economic entitlement or internal capability to empower themselves in fundamental aspects of life, such as education.
More than half of the Chepangs and other minorities in Kailash Rural Municipality are illiterate. In addition, students walk two or more hours to attend school there. Although the schools are free, parents cannot afford school supplies, and the teachers lack appropriate pedagogical training resulting in higher dropout rates. (SDA Baseline Survey Report 2015)
Education and Capacity Building (ECB)
SDA launched its Education and Capacity Building Project targeting the Chepang communities residing in the remote hills of Makwanpur District. It works in the education sector from its project area, Kailash Rural Municipality. The project intervenes in educational approaches and provides support to improve the social and economic status of the communities.
Shangri-La Sustainable Local Initiatives (SSLI) – a three years project implemented by Shangri-La Development Association (SDA) in cooperation with Govinda Association, Germany and Shangri-La Association, Switzerland, initiated as an integrated community development project had identified Education and Capacity Building as one of the major project components during its initial phase.
The project focuses on increasing literacy through active interventions of the targeted beneficiaries – school-going children of Kailash Rural Municipality wards no 3, 4, and 7. Moreover, parents, teachers, school management committees and stakeholders associated with the school-going children also fall under beneficiaries and target groups. The target is to develop a regular school-going habit and create skilled and educated youths.
SDA supported schools under its Education project
Shree Deutish Primary School – Deutish
Shree Praja Utthan Primary School – Dhusrang
Shree Kalika Primary School – Sarsi
Shree Satya Devi Primary School – Dekhari
Shree Bhawani Secondary School – Kalikatar
Nandikishwor Primary School – Vaisepal
The Activities under the Education Project
Mid Day Meal
SDA has its agriculture farm and demonstration plots, and the harvests from this land get sent to schools for meals. The School Management Committee (SMC) formed a team of parents to transport organic vegetables and other food items from the SDA field office.
The students get the meals according to the weekly meal schedule. The project team does cross-checks to verify that the students are getting proper meals on time. Moreover, there are variations in the meals the children get. SDA provides six types of meals every week.
Malnourishment is still rampant in the project area. Thus, the provision of mid-day meals ensures a balanced diet for the students. Similarly, it has also reduced the consumption of junk food.
The arrangement of mid-day meals guarantees they will get organic cooked meals since children from impoverished families do not get proper meals at home.
Mid-day meals have encouraged the children to attend the class regularly, and their learning achievement has improved from the previous years. It has effectively ensured the attendance of 500 students at schools supported by SDA.
Moreover, mid-day meals at school have helped to decrease potential malnutrition and improve the overall health of school-going children.
Child Clubs
Every child should be able to participate in activities and movements that deal with their rights. Upon understanding that, SDA puts effort into promoting and ensuring their participation and encourages them to participate in various activities relevant to the child rights movement.
Children below 16 years are grouped in the club and trained to work for their rights. SDA staff run workshops and campaigns to boost the capacity and skills of the children. The club conducts meetings monthly.
A child club formed with twenty-five members in Shree Bhawani Secondary School, Kalikatar is actively involved in sports, library management, publishing articles on the Magazine board every month to showcase their creativity and talent, and other extracurricular activities. SDA also provides materials and other necessary things to the child club.
Parents Meeting
The education project teams conduct parent-teacher meetings in each supported school where they discuss topics such as school enrollment, school retention of kids and campaign against school drop out, ensuring child rights and academic performance of the kids in the school.
The meetings are held twice a year at each supported school. The School Management Committee coordinates with education staff and local government representatives to conduct the meetings.
Pedagogical Support
The supported schools receive pedagogical support under which SDA provides uniforms, bags, slippers, books, pens, and warm clothes to 500 students each year.
Providing school uniforms, bags, books, pens, and warm clothes for students has helped reduce the financial expenditure of beneficiaries on children’s education. It has also motivated the parents to send their kids to school.
The teaching materials such as whiteboards, markers, dusters provided to the teachers and sports goods, books, and recreational materials for children have contributed to ensuring a quality learning and recreational environment for students and teachers.
Vocational Training/Education
SDA provides Vocational Education and Training scholarships to five youths from marginalized communities of the Kailash Rural Municipality. They can study Vocational Education in courses such as Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANM), Junior Agriculture Assistant (JTA), Lab Technician, and more. The trained human resources then work in the same villages for some years.
The students who receive educational support and study vocational education in agriculture later volunteer for six months at SDA agricultural land. The OJT students get trained on seasonal and off-season farming, organic farming, integrated waste management, vegetable harvesting, marketing, and bio-dynamics.
Along with the training, SDA offers a living facility on the community farm where the On The Job Training students learn organic farming compost, preparation, air layering, bio-pesticides preparation, planting the fruits, preparing the shade for the chicken and vaccination and treatment of animals.
The project also funds and prioritizes SEE graduated hostel students further their studies in different types of vocational education.
Library
To begin with, none of the schools had libraries. Hence, SDA established libraries in all supported schools and supplied them with books for teachers and students. In the same way, SDA also started a library and incorporated it into the Literacy Hall of the Literacy Home.
Literacy Home
Young girls become compelled to quit school and get married as early as 14. The evil practice of early marriages has terrible consequences for their education and the future. Besides, long distances to school and chronic poverty are other reasons for dropping out of school-going age Chepang girls.
Literacy Home is a Community Multi-Purpose Complex (building), which among other things, accommodates and supports fifteen school girls in their studies. It serves as a home away from home for girls from disadvantaged backgrounds to live and continue their education.
These girls otherwise would have gotten married early, become mothers too soon or been spending deprived life in household chores with no financial independence. Literacy Home has helped reduce child marriages while making them educated and skilled. Even if it stops one girl from early marriage, that is still a win.
Along with intellectual capacity, SDA cares about the good health of the girls, which is why all of them have health insurance.
Thus far, fourteen girls have passed SEE since they started staying in Literacy Home. SDA has criteria for the selection of hostel girls. The girls selected from grades six to nine stay until their SEE result.
Scholarship Support
In the first year, 300 Chepang students received a scholarship for school enrollment. In the second and third years, 100 more new kids obtained the scholarship support, respectively.
The scholarship package includes two sets of uniforms, stationeries (exercise book and writing materials) on a need basis, and one raincoat.
Around 500 students from six different government schools receive scholarship support, which includes uniforms, bags, slippers, books, pens, sweaters, tracksuits, warm clothes, and Kurta Suruwal for Girls every year.
Early Child Care and Development Centre (ECCD)
ECCD is the kindergarten section in the school. The project provides carpet, pillow, playing materials and cupboards to furnish and equip the ECCD in supported schools.
ECCD plays a crucial role in nurturing the education and care of children. Early childhood education has a substantial impact on the development of children. Children who receive support in their development from an early age become understanding adults.
With this activity, the project supports the future development of the children of rural areas through means of education. The project also conducts training and capacity building for ECD teachers in the supported schools.
Output in Education
Education as a project has amassed a lot of investment to support children from rural communities in their education through different activities.
The household owners in the community are aware of the scholarship, clothes and mid-day meals provided by the SDA for all students of six schools to encourage them to attend classes regularly and decrease the effect of malnourishment in children. It means the locals are familiar with the project activities and push their children to continue their education.
Along with carrying out the mentioned activities, SDA runs several other undertakings within the education project. Through the Education project, SDA raised awareness about citizenship certificates, birth, marriage and land registration.
According to the SSLI End Evaluation Report 2020, Mid-day meals and Uniform has a success rate of 70.7% as factors influencing the children to go to school, whereas learning through play has a 130.9% success rate.
School is where children come to prepare for a better life. They interact with their peers and teachers to develop skills and knowledge. Children being able to learn while playing in school increased their willingness to attend school. Furthermore, the improved habits of regular school-going students influenced their friends to be present in school.
With the implementation of school meal programs and pedagogy support, school enrollment has increased, and the dropout rate has decreased. According to the SSLI End Evaluation Report 2020, the school dropout rate decreased from 18% to 10% from 2018 to 2020.
There has been improvement in learning because of the support that SDA provides. Likewise, students submit assignments routinely, attend classes regularly and are happier than ever. They are glad to get stationaries, playing materials, and three pairs of clothes, so they remain neat.
Even within the education project, SDA carries out different health-oriented activities. The supported school students get health screenings, checkups and deworming every six months. The schools also receive health literacy and awareness classes.
The girls in the Literacy Home hostel receive support for living in a homely environment, food, clothing, stationery, and quality education. The girls are proactive and get to learn life skills training such as stitching and farming.
Multifaceted activities under the education project have proven to create a positive and motivating environment for children to form school-going habits. Likewise, the support in educating and training young adults has long-term positive impacts on the upliftment of the Chepang community.