Literacy Home is a Community Multi-Purpose Complex (building) where plannings and strategies get made before implementing in the field. Located in a small village named Kalikatar of Kailash Rural Municipality of Makwanpur District, Literacy Home functions as a resource centre for Kalikatar and Bharta owned by the local community. Kailash Rural Municipality is one of the two project areas of the Shangri-La Development Association (SDA).
In the earliest days, Literacy Home was in a rented house in Kalikatar where SDA supported the education and accommodation of four girls. Whereas now, Literacy Home has its premise and building and supports 15 girls from different communities of Kailash Rural Municipality.
Concept Behind Literacy Home
The SDA literacy home in Kalikatar is one component of the SBRES Project – School Building Reconstruction and Education Support Project (SBRES).
The concept was developed in the Shangri-La Sustainable Local Initiative (SSLI), a three-year project of the Shangri-La Development Association in cooperation with the Govinda Development Aid Association (GDAA).
Education for Girls
To begin with, Literacy Home was established as an education centre to educate girls from Kailash Rural Municipality. There were no concrete ideas in the initial phase about the literacy home rather than providing accommodation facilities to the school girls.
The village where Literacy Home is situated lies in a geographically challenging state resulting in a lack of proper infrastructure of development there. Kalikatar only recently got access to electricity. The absence of good roads and floods and landslides during the monsoon only add to the pre-existing problems for the locals there.
In rural areas of the Makwanpur district, cultures, traditions and norms observed and followed are archaic. Deeply rooted narrow-minded notions in societies deprive girls of pursuing a school education. According to a study by the Nepalese government, 63% of women marry before they reach the age of 18 while 7% before 10.
Concerning issues alike, directly or indirectly, have caused a wave-like effect for the girls there. Child marriages and alarming dropout rates of school girls are common in Kailash Rural Municipality.
Literacy Home was birthed as an idea to create a safe space for girls from marginalised communities to pursue their education and lower the rate of school dropouts and child marriage.
Improving the lives of Chepangs
Chepangs are a tribal group that used to be the last nomadic hunters and gatherers in the forests of Nepal. The Tibeto-Burman ethnic group of the Chepang, semi-nomadic hunters and gatherers until a few generations ago, are called the poorest of the poor. Around 52,000 Chepangs are in the Dhading, Chitwan, Gorkha and Makwanpur districts.
And from them, 66% in Kalikatar and 90% in Bharta of Makwanpur districts are illiterate. Adult illiteracy, malnutrition, alcoholism, exploitation and discrimination characterises their living conditions. On top of that, the Chepang community lacks food security, resource ownership and even citizenship certificates.
According to the District Profile of Makwanpur, the total land area of Kalikatar VDC is 34.32 SKM, and Bharta is 24.57 SKM. 90% of houses are made of wood, 5% houses of stone and mud, and 5% stone and cemented with a tin roof.
The settlement pattern in Kailash Rural Municipality is scattered. Distance from the service delivery points like school, health post and Agriculture service centre varies from one house to the other and is fewer than 15 minutes to about three hours walking distance.
Therefore, SDA needed to step into the community and work on grassroots levels to uplift the living standard of Chepangs in terms of Health, Education and Agriculture. It called for a multi-dimensional establishment. Ergo, the Literacy Home. Besides Chepangs, people from Tamang and Dalit communities are also the beneficiaries of projects of SDA.
Functions of Literacy Home
Initially conceptualised as an establishment to provide a safe space for fifteen girls each year from the indigenous community to live and study, Literacy Home has become a place for SDA to carry out its official work, projects and programs. Since the establishment of Literacy Home, SDA has effectuated several activities that have significantly impacted the lives of beneficiaries.
Along with accommodation support to fifteen girl students selected to be SDA hostel girls in Literacy Home, SDA also supports them in accessing education. It has helped in reducing the number of girl dropouts.
Similarly, within 15 minutes of walking distance from Literacy Home locates SDA’s farmland. Different seasonal and off seasonal crops, vegetables and fruits are grown there. The agricultural products are consumed as meals in the SDA Literacy home by the hostel girls and staff. Moreover, the foods also get sent to the five schools supported by SDA as a mid-day meal.
Schools supported by SDA
1. Shree Bhawani Secondary School – Kalikatar ( Ward-3)
2. Shree Deutish Primary School – Deutish, ( Ward-4)
3. Shree Praja Uthan Primary School – Dhushrang ( Ward-4)
4. Shree Nadikishwor Primary School – Bhaisepal ( Ward-3)
5. Shree Satya Devi Primary School – Dekhari ( Ward-7)
6. Shree Kalika Primary School – Sarsi ( Ward-7)
Schools reconstructed by SDA
1. Shree Bhawani Secondary School – Kalikatar ( Ward-3)
2. Shree Praja Uthan Primary School – Dhushrang ( Ward-4)
3. Shree Satya Devi Primary School – Dekhari ( Ward-7)
4. Shree Kalika Primary School – Sarsi ( Ward-7)
Apart from the mid-day meal, SDA also supports the school students up to grade 5 in four schools with necessary school supplies and school uniforms.
Most of the students in the project area attend the school by walking for 2 hours. Although the school is free, most parents cannot afford the necessary school supplies, school uniforms or school lunch for their children. Factors influencing the dropout rates are poverty, distance and illiteracy.
Present Scenario of Literacy Home
Literacy Home firmly stands in Kalikatar today, comprising hostel rooms, a literacy hall, agriculture centre room, health literacy centre, an office and a kitchen.
Hostel rooms are for the fifteen students who have to walk more than two hours to reach school and can stay in the rooms and attend school. The students cook themselves during the absence of the kitchen staff and take care of the rooms.
There is also a REFLECT literacy hall where a large room serves as a designated space for REFLECT (Regenerated Freirean Literacy through Empowering Community Techniques) – meeting/workshop for the community adults.
The Agriculture Resource Centre room in the Literacy Home is the room for keeping agriculture-related tools and products. Farmers can borrow the modern agriculture tools introduced to the centre and use them for better production.
SDA health staff run health literacy in the communities, run mobile health camps from the centre and coordinate with poorly equipped government health posts located in Kalikatar and Bharta.
Literacy Home is the heart of all the community-based project activities. Through REFLECT, the community people have become empowered to own the project and take care of all project activities in the long run.
Response From The Community
The community or the primary beneficiaries have shown appreciation for the programs and training of SDA from the very beginning. The identified problems are shared and discussed with the community in Literacy Hall to reach healthy practical conclusions. And, solutions to people’s problems and the development interventions expected by the communities get incorporated in future project designs.
People from Kailash Rural Municipality are involved in the project implementation process. The community is a vital project stakeholder, and its involvement has been ensured from day one of the projects. It makes the projects sustainable through the approval of the community. SDA has always given the impression that the community is the owner of the projects.
A home away from home, Literacy Home, serves as a knowledge centre for everyone. It is a place to work for SDA in its project area for the overall development of Chepang Community in Kalikatar and Bharta (Now Kailash Rural-Municipality), Makwanpur via intervention in Education, Agriculture and Health.