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Employment can be generated by promotion and development of off-farm micro-enterprises besides diversification, modernization and commercialization of agriculture. Enterprises have certain minimum threshold for operation which the poor households will not have as single entity. But if they are organized in one place for producing the same product, they can produce in commercial scale and enter into market jointly in a single trademark. In this way they will have economies of scale. Otherwise if they have a single enterprise for one product in one place, they will have to go for marketing, procurement of materials and services to far-off places individually whose cost they cannot meet and will be unviable at the end of the day. In this way, Non farm based enterprises such as food processing e.g. Squash, Juice, jam, jelly, pickles, dalmoth bhujiya making, potato chips making, noodles making and bamboo based handicraft production etc. These products have been identified based on their comparative economic advantage recognized as collective rural enterprises.

 

Activities for One Village One product enterprises

 

• Careful selection of Nirdhan financial Center and entrepreneurs selection
• Local institution mapping and information collection
• Program orientation with relevant stakeholders
• Detailed product identification, availability of raw materials, input output market, expert service providers
• Provision of credit for enterprise creation
• Training on production, entrepreneurship and marketing aspects of the products
• Formation of cooperative of the entrepreneurs and registration with concerned government organization.
• Industrial estate creation
• Quality control and market facilitation

The duration of the project is for the period of 9 Months (1November 2009 to 31 October 2010). with partnership of World Education Australia Limited (WEAL), World Education Incorporated, Nepal Country Office(WEN).

Project Goal: women microfinance clients empowered to improve their livelihoods through enhanced skills and knowledge.

Project Objectives:

Objective 1 – Women clients of Dalit and minority groups with improved literacy and numeracy skills and economic awareness.

Objective 2 – Women clients developing skills and actively pursuing livelihood opportunities.

Objective 3 – Nirdhan will have enhanced capacity to plan, deliver and monitor a training program to strengthen the economic and livelihood activities of its poorest women borrowers, with the support of community facilitators.

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The duration of the project is for the period of 1 year (April 2008 to April 2009). Within the project period, it will provide develop linkage with microfinance institution like Nirdhan Utthan Bank for sustainable financing and World Education Australia Limited (WEAL), World Education Incorporated, Nepal Country Office(WEN)

Freed Kamaiya Livelihood Development Project with financial support of European Commission/Plan had been implemented in 28 different VDCs and one municipality of Bardiya district through NIRDHAN (Nirdhan NGO and Nirdhan Utthan Bank Limited) since July 2008 and lasted upto December 2012. Though the project was designed from January 2008, due to different reasons implementation of the project delayed for few months.

Bardiya has almost 400,000 inhabitants with multiple ethnic, linguistic, religious and cultural traits. Among them Tharus are numerically the largest (35%) and historically, oldest indigenous people. The high level of poverty in the district is partly explained by the large numbers of freed Kamaiyas in the district. illiterate, unskilled, and without capital, the freed Kamaiya (FK) families have not yet succeed to make effective use of available economic opportunities and are still struggling to build up a new way of life after breaking up the bonded labor relationship with landlords. Presently, Kamaiya’s freedom lacks sustainability because it is not yet built on a sound economic foundation. Children from freed Kamaiya families run a great risk of growing up under far-from-optimal circumstances, unable to realize their full potential.

After the emancipation of Kamaiyas from the former kamaiya system expected resettlement of new villages lacked various socio-economic opportunities as the government didn’t immediately focused for rehabilitation of freed kamaiyas.

Though the Kamaiyas are the oldest residents of the district they always have lived outside of the access to education, health, food and even shelter. This project aimed at addressing such problems of the FKs not only with the help of different activities of livelihoods (Nirdhan NGO’s part) but also with the help of microfinance (NUBL’s part). NUBL forms the Self Reliant Groups (SRG) of females only. FKs communities run predominantly by women and they also often show responsibility towards the upbringing of their children which is one of the best strategies towards women empowerment. NUBL mobilizes communities, facilitate to form Self Reliant Groups (SRGs) and provides financial services whereas Nirdhan NGO provided different types of skill trainings and livelihood supports (non-financial services) to the SRGs. In such a way the project promoted many of the economically promising as well as local resource based enterprises such as vegetable (season and off-season) cultivation, poultry, goat, and other livestock based farming, bee keeping, fishery, and other off-farm activities initially at the scale that simply makes a change in the operational cropping pattern, household income and build collective and individual economic capacities which will help to make it more autonomous and ultimately sustainable.

Objectives of the project were

Overall objective: Agricultural production: Increased & diversified in a sustainable way

► Household income increased with increased access to financial services, market access, production infrastructures, skill development and micro-enterprise development.

► SRGs are able to support sustainable financial and technical support for agricultural and economic development effectively. The objectives will be achieved through:

Ø To have sustained the newly gained freedom of freed Kamaiya families.

Ø To have reduced extreme poverty in Nepal.

Ø To enable children from freed Kamaiya families to realize their full potential by ensuring that their rights as children and human beings are being respected.

Expected Results:

• Built social and community institutions·built community physical infrastructure· Transfered livelihood skills· protected livelihood and strengthened resilience

Last Updated (Thursday, 17 December 2015 06:10)

The populations of the hilly and mountainous regions of Nepal still remain under-served in terms of access of microfinance. Since these areas are considered risky and expensive to serve, most of the financial institutions are hesitant to operate in these areas.  Nevertheless, Mercy Corps have enabled the related MFIs expand into these areas with innovative product and qualitative service for these needy poor households through the DFID funded Sustainable Access to Finance and Livelihoods in Nepal (SAFAL Nepal)” program. To supplement SAFAL, Financial Literacy Training (FLT) are being carried out in Rukum, Banke, Kalikot and Jumla by Mecry Corps and Nirdhan in order to increase the loan repayment capacities of these rural poor households so that they can better utilize the loans they take out from the MFIs. With the help of financial literacy trainings, the target groups are able to make informed decisions about savings, money and risk management and practice sound financial behavior. The target clients are also able to participate more confidently in micro-enterprise creation and increased productivity.

The overall goal of the project is to improve the overall livelihood status of the poor rural MFI clients by providing them with helpful financial management knowledge:

• Carry out FLT for the MFI groups according to the curriculum developed by Mercy Corps; Each group will receive 26 sessions of training
• Each group of MFI will have 20-25 participants
• By the end of the project period, the following number of 204 MFI groups will have been trained: Banke (Fattepur) – 28, Kalikot – 28, Jumla – 28, Rukum (Chaurjahari) – 24
• To train additional facilitators to deliver the training if needed according to the ToT provided by Mercy Corps
• Monitoring and supervision of the FLT by Mercy Corps and Nirdhan
• Periodic evaluation of the FLT