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In the dawn of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0) shaped by AI, blockchain, Internet of things, multiverse, and quantum computing (World Economic Forum 2016), the emphasis on creativity and innovation, entrepreneurship, and technology development also affects the ways the so-called non-profit sectors design and implement development and humanitarian programmes in developing countries like Nepal. In the past few years, World Vision International (WVI) Nepal has incorporated emerging technologies and innovation to save lives, to reach the most vulnerable and hard-to-reach communities, and to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of humanitarian and development actions. Following the 2015 Nepal Earthquake Response, WVI Nepal has ideated, prototyped, and scaled up community focused innovative solutions like Sikka, KITAB Bazar, and Participatory Disaster Risk Assessment (PDRA) tools integrated into its development and humanitarian initiatives. Sikka Sikka is a digital tool that facilitates cash and voucher assistance programmes by distributing digital tokens to beneficiaries through a blockchain technology. The tokens can be exchanged for cash or goods at participating merchants, financial cooperatives, or relief centers. SIKKA’s digital tokens are transferred through SMS text messaging. Blockchain transactions are transparent and trackable allowing aid agencies to deploy this last mile distribution tool even in fragile contexts. The system has been used to assist 92,788 people during the Covid-19 response. KITAB Bazar It is a cutting-edge online marketplace that enables results-based financing as a solution to improve access to supplementary reading materials in schools. The platform simplifies the entire process of selecting, ordering and purchasing books for children in coordination with key stakeholders like municipalities and private publishing houses, which proved quite relevant in covid operational context. KITAB Bazar has served 53,412 children in 831 community schools by providing 133,008 supplementary reading books in local languages through the platform. With an intention to share the resources and deliver public service at a better value through KITAB Bazar, the platform was handed over to the private sector in April 2022. Participatory Disaster Risk Assessment (PDRA) The development of a digital platform for participatory disaster risk assessment at household level and vulnerability classification along with a facility to generate household disaster preparedness and response plans (HDPRP) is an innovative initiative undertaken by WVI Nepal under the USAID TAYAR project, implemented at Lamkichuha Municipality-9 in Kailali district in 2021. After effectively deploying the data collection tool (the PDRA mobile application) for survey of more than 1,700 households in the ward, along with data collection of community resources/infrastructure using a team of locally trained enumerators, the PDRA tool was used for vulnerability assessment of households. PDRA is a set of tools which assess the household and community level existing hazards, disaster risks, vulnerability, resources and capacities, and identifies the plans to mitigate, prevent and manage their impacts at household and communities level. Supported by USAID, PDRA works by assessing the household and community level existing hazards, disaster risks, vulnerability, resources, capacities and identifies the plans to mitigate, prevent and manage the disaster’s impacts at household and communities level. Social plastics In Nepal 16 percent of urban waste is plastic, totaling 2.7 tons of daily plastic waste production with Kathmandu alone using around 4.8 million plastic bags as of 2018. Micro plastics have been found in the snow and stream water samples in remote regions of Mt. Everest. WVI Nepal has been exploring the possibilities of reducing plastic waste found in communities, focusing on creating livelihood related opportunities by innovatively co-creating with different stakeholders to create the right value propositions. In the past, WVI Nepal has designed products such as the squat latrine pans and floor tiles,  that were made of a mixture of 60 percent sand and 40 percent PET plastic that were gradually heated up and compressed into a mold to take the shape of the final product. The mold was created to be flat packed for transportation to remote areas. Similarly, with the onset of the covid pandemic, to support WVI Nepal’s covid response, exploration of products ranged from 3D printed bag valve mask (BVM) Ambu Bag mechanical respirators, to phone holders, to mask hooks for children. The initiative has resulted in repurposing waste plastics to produce low cost and durable materials such as thermal insulation for schools and health centers during emergency, and high strength bricks for housing and squat latrines for vulnerable households and communities. These products have proven vital in supporting and providing relief to the most vulnerable communities in Nepal.

Almost a decade ago, a massive flood in the Mahakali river raged against Khalla Maseti village in Kanchanpur district of Nepal. The forthcoming story intends to shed light on the undeterred resiliency of Anjali Bohora, a local resident of the village, whose house was washed away in the flood, making her family homeless overnight.   Anjali Bohora takes a nostalgic trip of the past as she walks in the arid sand washed by the floods. Her house, and nine others in the community were swept in the fury of nature, making the entire community inhabitable. A stark contrast of what the community has become today could be easily imagined when Anjali described her village before the floods.  “The entire stretch of land was painted with little specks of green vegetables that provided livelihood for the families living near the riverbanks”, says Anjali.  But a fateful night turned everything upside down for Anjali as she narrates the entire incident of the flood.  “It was a gloomy afternoon with a small amount of rainfall which was normal for us. During the daytime we didn’t think anything serious would happen. But at night when we were asleep, I heard people crying for help and shouting to save their lives. I immediately took two of my children out of my house and moved to a higher ground. Within hours, our house, farm, and cattle were washed away in the floods, leaving us with nothing”, says Anjali.    After the flood, she started living with her sister, which provided some respite to Anjali.  “For several months after the flood, I was lost. I had several questions in my mind: how I will educate my kids, how I will start earning again. I was also aware that I cannot stay with my sister forever and add up to her financial burden. So, one day, I decided to fight back with my fate. I borrowed some money from local people with the intent of starting a general shop”, says Anjali.  Anjali approached a local temple who let her use their land to construct a shop. Within a month, Anjali was able to set up a modest structure where she started a tea shop. Gradually, she expanded her shop and started providing snacks, lunch, and grocery items. Anjali’s friendly nature started attracting customers, and she started earning a livelihood. She tells us that not only has she repaid all her loans, but she also managed to educate her children.  “My son is currently studying in grade 11 and my daughter has finished her high school and has now started her bachelor’s degree in commerce”, says Anjali. She further adds, “My children mean the world to me. My major concern in life now is to provide good education to my children”.    Having lost her house and cattle in the flood almost a decade back, Anjali has gradually picked herself back and has been the breadwinner of her family. Her husband, who left home looking for a job in India two decades ago, never came back home.  “My husband probably doesn’t even know about the flood and that our children have grown up. I had to go through all of this alone”, says Anjali while standing on the same spot where her house used to be before the flood.  She grabs a water pipe which is the only remaining structure of her house. “This pipe is the only memory I have of my house”, says Anjali who was not able to control her tears while saying these words.  And as she quickly recovers from her tears, she tells us that she does not want the younger generation to go through all the hardships that she has faced. That’s why Anjali is actively involved as a Community Disaster Management Committee member established by Oxfam’s Strengthening Community Preparedness, Rapid Response and Recovery in Asia (SCOPR3) project. “As a member of CDMC my role is to organize coordination meetings with the local ward office to prepare crisis management plans and to inform the government to conduct rescue operations in case of emergency”, says Anjali.   Anjali also received a portable steel container shop as a part of livelihood support from Oxfam’s SCOPR3 project under the recommendation of another Oxfam’s project called TROSA operating in the same village . “My shop right now is just beside the road, and I have made it on someone else’s land. I might have to evacuate this land anytime. With the portable shop, I feel more secure about my livelihood as I can easily transport this kiosk anywhere I want”, says Anjali.  Besides, Anjali was also involved in lobby meetings organized by the members of Women Empowerment Center (WEC) established by Oxfam’s Transboundary Rivers of South Asia (TROSA) project. The lobby meeting was conducted to demand a telecommunication tower to obtain internet services and mobile network connectivity.   “The members of WEC asked me to join a lobby meeting with the local government to establish a telecommunication tower in the village. “I immediately accepted to join the meeting because having a telecommunication tower in the village meant that we could use our phones to communicate information to different communities in case there were floods”. She adds, “If we had a tower back in 2013, we would have received information about floods on time, and I could have salvaged many valuable belongings that I lost in the flood”.  The telecommunication tower has not only helped in easing communication in the village but has also germinated a new form of online services as internet connectivity has been established in the village. As Anjali serves lunch to her customers in her shop, many visitors from the village greet her with respect. Most people in the village consider Anjali to be like an elder sister as they look up to her when they are in trouble.  And as she reflects back on her own life and the people who helped her during difficult times, she says, “It’s important to help each other out when times are difficult, because we all are vulnerable when we are alone, but when we are together, no one can break our spirit”.

Sharmila Lama, 39 lives in Manikhel, Mahankal Rural Municipality, which lies in Southern Lalitpur. She lives with her daughter, now 18 years old, who is her only child. She lost both her parents and her two brothers in a devastating landslide when she was just 11. She moved to Lalitpur after getting married. Her husband left for foreign employment soon after her marriage, when her daughter was just six months old. Tragically, her husband went missing just three months after leaving for Malaysia and she never heard back from him. All she was left with was a huge loan taken for her husband, and an infant to feed and take care of. All this with no income was indeed unimaginably challenging for Sharmila. Sharmila started to work as a housemaid in Kathmandu which did not provide her with enough money to look after herself and her daughter. Then she decided to move to Kuwait for employment, leaving her young daughter with her relatives. “Leaving my daughter back in Nepal was the hardest decision of my life, but I had no choice!”, says Sharmila. She further adds, “On top of that, life in Kuwait was not easy at all. The work was extremely difficult, and I could not save enough money, despite the hardship. After six years in Kuwait, I realized that it is better to do something for a living in my own country. I also realized that it is better to become a merchant than serving other merchants abroad”. She returned from Kuwait, determined to do something on her own, but things were not so easy. She started small-scale vegetable farming but that was not at all enough to handle her family expenses.  She struggled for years just to live hand-to-mouth until one day back in 2017, a field staff of FWEAN, FCA’s implementing partner NGO, visited her and informed about the ongoing FCA project that supports women like Sharmila to establish their businesses. She showed interest and chose to start a bamboo handicraft business. At first, she received 28-day “Start and Improve Your Business” training for bamboo handicraft production. Soon after completion of the training, she started making bamboo products like baskets and cup holders from her newly gained skill. Later, she also received a 22-day refresher training to further enhance her skills. The project staff facilitated for her to become a member of a FCA established and supported women’s Cooperative from which she could access a loan of Rs 200,000 for her initial investment to buy raw materials and tools. The support from FCA was not just limited to this. Like thousands of other women in Nepal, FCA linked Sharmila to the market and buyers from different places. This was done by selling her products from a product outlet in Chapagaun, Lalitpur, established and run with FCA’s support. She has also sold her products and found long-term buyers in business expos organized by FCA’s partner FWEAN. These expos are organized each year at local as well as national levels. Her products were also sold in a virtual expo conducted online during the pandemic. Her products can also be bought from winbiz.com.np, an online business portal run by FWEAN.  Sharmila makes 19 different types of products now, which include food baskets, cloth racks, laundry baskets and so on. After fully paying back her loan, she took another loan of Rs 700,000 which she is paying back as monthly installments without any problems. Her products are in high demand now, especially after she was linked with new regular buyers in the trade expo. Now she plans to train and hire some women to work for her, as it is now getting difficult to meet demands from her buyers. As a backup support, Sharmila also started to do some small-scale commercial farming of asparagus and tomato; she has received commercial farming training and tomato tunnel support from FCA’s ongoing project.  Sharmila’s livelihood has drastically improved in the past years. She was able to construct her own house in 2021; her daughter Rupa is studying bachelor’s degree in Computer Science in Chapagaun and is working part-time as a salesperson in the product outlet established with FCA’s support. She receives a monthly stipend of Rs 10,000 which she utilizes as her pocket money.  Sharmila told FCA staff members during her household visit, “I cannot even explain how much my life has changed in the past few years. FCA, Women’s bank of Finland and FWEAN are like my mothers, who gave me a new life and a reason to live. I can never thank you enough. Who does all these things? I mean, right from giving training, providing an opportunity to take loans, supporting for starting a business, making connections to the market. If possible, please pass my sincere thanks to everyone who is behind providing support to women like me”. FCA has been working in Southern Lalitpur since 2009. The projects are funded by Women’s Bank of Finland and implemented by NGO partners SOLVE Nepal and FWEAN. SOLVE does all the work related to cooperatives and women’s social empowerment, while FWEAN supports women for entrepreneurship development and marketing. There are 12 women-led and owned cooperatives running in Lalitpur with FCA’s support (29 in Nepal). The support includes right from the establishment, building construction, operational and financial capacity building, capacity building of executive members, support in procuring essential assets, and providing grants for various initiatives of women, for instance, Local Women Economic Development (LWED) project for women’s skill enhancement and establishment of their own enterprise. There are currently over 4,500 women directly affiliated with FCA supported cooperatives in Lalitpur who are making regular savings and accessing loans for doing their own business. FCA has also been supporting social empowerment of women and facilitating their participation in development processes. 19 women who are members of FCA-supported cooperatives are recently elected and now serving as municipal and ward level representatives in Lalitpur. 

Of the total students enrolled in Grade 1 almost ten years ago (i.e., in the school year 2008), only 58.4 percent of students reached Grade 10. This illustrates that nearly 41.6 percent of children either repeated or dropped out without completing secondary education. In other words, only One child out of every Two children enrolled in Grade 1 reached up to Grade 10. 459,275 students appeared in the SEE in 2075 BS, 325,330 of them were from public schools. In the same year, around 41 percent of private school students had A/A+ Grades while only about four percent of public school students had A/A+ Grades. Despite the higher enrollment rate, Public schools have been able to produce only one academically sound student for every 10 similar students out of Private schools. Free public education is the only option for the majority of these children who come from lower economic status. Without a quality education, children cannot access better life opportunities and are forced into low paid jobs, unsafe working conditions in foreign countries and get caught in the vicious cycle of poverty. Also, failure to access quality education limits their power and choices in making reproductive decisions, securing financial independence, ensuring personal safety and exercising their fundamental rights and voices.  Teach For Nepal works toward the day when every child in Nepal attains an excellent and equitable education. TFN annually finds and nurtures leaders who commit to expanding opportunity for under-resourced school students in rural Nepal, beginning with at least two years teaching Fellowship in a public school. Teach For Nepal Fellowship is an opportunity for brightest and most promising Nepali youths, who have graduated from best universities and workplace from Nepal and abroad, to serve as full-time teachers. Annually 100s of outstanding graduates apply for the Fellowship of which, only 7-10 percent of applicants are eligible to become a Fellow and enroll onto the program from a range of diverse academic backgrounds. Through two years of teaching and working with key education stakeholders, Teach For Nepal Fellows are exposed to the grassroots realities of Nepal’s education system and cultivate the knowledge, skills, and mindsets needed to attain positions of leadership in and beyond education, working collectively to build a vibrant movement for educational equity across Nepal.  As of today, Teach For Nepal has 68 Fellows directly serving 6000 public school students in six districts. Similarly, the TFN Alumni has a community of 375 members of which more than 60 percent continue to work in the education sector or the larger development sector post their Fellowship. Every year around 60-70 outstanding graduates join TFN with a mission to drive change through TFN which was founded in 2012, as a social enterprise that works to improve quality education in public schools of the country.  Transforming the nation, one classroom at a time For many children, the Fellows are their first encounter with an engineer. It is the first they see a woman with a bachelor’s degree in sciences. And the first time they meet either somebody visually impaired, or a Dalit, with a bachelor’s degree. Living and working in the community as teachers in public schools, Fellows embark upon a leadership journey that roots them within the contextual reality.  At the same time, through training, workshops, and conferences, Fellows deepen their understanding of the larger contexts that impact national and international policy and programs. In two years, Fellows make a significant impact in raising classroom achievement and influence the community towards positive change. Greater access to national and global opportunities for higher studies Fellows help students secure scholarship opportunities to pursue higher education in both local and global schools. To date, six female students have received prestigious scholarships for IB education at United World College, a network of international high schools, in Germany and India. Some are now pursuing fully subsidized university degrees, including in the United States. Over 30 other students are on scholarships studying in some of the best private colleges in Kathmandu.