This landlocked country holds its place on the world stage
for many reasons. Its northern districts are set amongst the highest mountain
range on the globe, whilst at the same time its biggest export is workers to
more affluent counties, and is amongst the poorest of Asian nations.
Gender inequality, child trafficking, extreme
poverty, environmental degradation, and natural disasters are just a few of the
issues that the many INGOs and NGOs are tackling. It may come as a surprise to
learn that most of these organisations do not use either national or
international volunteers. VSO stands amongst the handful of organisations that work
by bringing people together through volunteerism, to share their knowledge
which will hopefully result in sustainable change, poverty reduction and
greater life choices for the beneficiaries.
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These Tamang people illustrate one of their most endearing characters. How to remain positive
when faced with the most difficult of circumstances. This image was taken just six days after the earthquake
had destroyed most of their village. |
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Women are the back bone of Nepali farming and our training programs wherever
possible target them. |
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This woman (far left) supports her mother-in-law and is joined in the photograph by her two female workers with whom she
keeps fourteen milking buffalo. |
In a few sentences I would like to use my placement in Nepal
to illustrate how many people have come together, and what that collective
effort has achieved.
The team at VSO UK, prepared Jude and I for our trip to
Kathmandu. Through VSO Nepal that
support has continued over the last two years.
However, none of this could happen without the actions of individual
donors back in the UK who have continued to provide the finances. These donors include a huge numbers of
British families who donate to VSO on a regular basis and can now read a first
hand account of what their money has achieved.
As you might expect life here, as everywhere, has its “Ups
and Downs”. The ‘Ups’ take care of themselves but during the ‘Downs’…….. when a
volunteer may feel a long way from home, or perhaps has temporarily lost sight
of what it is all about or maybe the diet is a bit lacking and health is below
par, then a whole other group of team members start to play their part.
On the professional side VSO UK has listened
and offered support, friends and family have chatted over Skype, literally
hundreds of thousands of you have read our blog posts. From the Ukraine to
China and Ireland to Australia readers just taking the time to log onto the
blog, and occasionally post a comment, all have a motivating effect on the
volunteer………somebody is interested, somebody cares.
Many donors back in the UK have not stopped
at giving their money. They also send email messages wishing us well and helping
to keep our spirits up. All of you are valuable team members.
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During our time in Nepal, Jude and I have written blog posts. Each one of the nearly half a million readers, by taking an interest have helped us through the tough times. They are all a valuable part of the 'team'. |
Volunteering means leaving things behind and suspending life
back at home. Another whole band of the supporting team like family members who
look after the house, the dog, the garden and take on countless thankless tasks
have played their essential role in this tale.
Now, in the final days of the placement all these team
members worldwide, can hear what their collective efforts have achieved.
At the sharp end you have supported a volunteer in a project
that is funded by the UK Government. The project name is Samarth, which
translates into ‘helping people help themselves’.
The initial work involved working with all the
dairy industry stakeholders to establish a genuine “need”, which could form the
heart of an intervention. Farmers, processors and the government all agreed
that poor milk quality was the single most important issue holding back the dairy industry.
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A woman in Ilam delivers a 40kg churn of milk to an isolated cheese factory. |
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Delivering milk before school |
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This farmer earns extra cash walking 6 hours a day carrying milk. His maximum load is
50kgs. |
Your volunteer, working in a small team for a department in the
Ministry of Agriculture, wrote a process that included all the production steps
for milk from farmers to processing. All the stakeholders once again
unanimously accepted that the adoption of this Good Manufacturing Practice for
Raw Milk (GMP) is the way forward and have asked Samarth to carry out pilot
schemes to validate it.
The final stage of the volunteer’s involvement with this
intervention has been training senior government officers in all the
historical, technical and methodological aspects of the GMP process. In short
everything that these 4 officers will need to allow them to train 80 trainers
within the supply chains whose job it will be to train a further 7000 farmers.
The big bonus is that 50% of the government officers were women, as are 65% of the
trainers and the majority of farmers.
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To improve awareness we visited the field with the Government Officers for whom we provided 'Train the Trainer' training.
They went on to train farmers who will themselves carry out the training of 7000 farmers. The older couple that are central to the photograph told us that they were still engaged in dairy farming despite being married for over 70 years! Their wedding had take place when they were 7 years old!
Illiteracy is a problem in many rural districts. Using the skills of a local Nepali artist, who's day work is painting Buddhist 'thangka', we developed training posters that will be used as lesson plans by the farmer trainers. Each farmer will display the poster back home as a reminder. The lower poster is for display at the milk collection/chilling centre.
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An added bonus is that the curriculum for the GMP implementation
has already been adopted by the government and will be part of their training program next year.
On a different project the volunteer has shared cheese
making skills with small rural based factories that are then more able to
supply the distant urban markets in the Kathmandu valley.
The development impact of both projects is targeted at
reducing poverty and securing incomes for smallholder farmers, improving the
lives of working women and reducing the environmental impact of producing milk.
The last couple of years have been a huge teamwork exercise with
each participant making a valuable contribution. Thanks go to each and every
one of you that has played a part in what we have collectively achieved.
I would like to finish with a short quote from the late Joe
Tasker, a very talented mountaineer and writer from the Northern England, who wrote
“the most rewarding of achievements only come from succeeding against the
greatest odds”.
Together, we have achieved against all odds.