Over 20% of Nepalis earns less than US$2 a day. Many lived in areas with little or no skills.
Nepal has remained one of the poorest country in the world. Five million people are undernourished and according to the World Bank report in 2017, 10.8% earned $1.90 per day. The UN positioned Nepal at 145 out of 187 countries in human development. Lower caste people are found to be desperately poor, whereas, higher caste people get more share of income distribution. Untouchables, socially excluded indigenous communities and women suffer more from poverty in comparison to others.
Life is hard. Villagers grow potatoes and vegetables on small terraced farms.
They are sustainable farmers which means they earn enough just to survive. In Nepal it takes 3 hours and 21 minutes to earn enough money to buy a kilo of rice, 4 hours and 26 minutes for a litre of milk, 4 hours and 52 minutes for a kilo of sugar, and over 10 hours for a litre of cooking oil. And if you want a few luxuries – a colour TV would cost you 1,258 hours of labour and a bicycle would cost you 436 hours of work.
Source: Adapted from Nepal Social Forum (2002)
24% of Nepalis don’t own any land and most of them only have small farms which are insufficient to sustain a reasonable standard of living.
To supplement their income, OHF is helping poor villagers to start:
Chicken Farming
Goat Farming
Selling chicken and goat meat which are high in demand gives them the opportunity to break the poverty cycle. We provide the capital and the training to enable them to start their own chicken/goat farms
Villagers who want to learn face a problem because most of the training centres are far from their homes. They cannot afford to spend a few hours of travelling each day to attend the training. OHF starts training centres in remote areas so that villagers can just walk to the centre.
These tailoring and computer training centres are there for 4 to 6 months before they are relocated to another remote area to give more people the chance to learn.
Mina’s dream came true
After the devastating Earthquake 2015 in Nepal, many people became homeless in different districts of Nepal. Mina and her family was also affected from the earthquake. Her house fell down during the disaster. Mina lives in Nala, Kavre district of Nepal with her husband and two daughters. Her older daughter is 5 years old and younger daughter is 18 months old.
Mina and her husband were struggling for their basic needs and have no regular source of income, ‘after the earthquake, we took loan to build the house but we had no skills to earn more income. This is why my husband went to Dubai two years ago to repay the loan’, Mina said.
Mina is one of the participants of Tailoring Training which Compassionate Hands For Nepal & Operation Hope Foundation (OHF) has organized in Nala, Kavre to empower women. She is picking up the tailoring skill passionately. The training is running for the third month but she has already begun to earn money.
‘This training has brought hope into my life. I am learning different tailoring skills in this training. When I complete the training, I have a dream to start a tailoring shop. My husband and I will work together in that shop to earn for our better future. I am very much thankful to the Organization for organizing this kind of skillful training which has provided hope to many other women like me. I learn at the training centre everyday and sew clothes for the community members by borrowing a sewing machine from my father in law. I charge 100-200 rupees per cloth. Last month I earned Rs 5000’, Mina said with great excitement.
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