More big things coming in 2008...

We had the most inspiring experience when we were in Nepal last November. We went along to a lesson with a group of women who are all illiterate domestic workers in Kathmandu. They are involved in a pilot program by CWISH which is providing them with basic literacy and numeracy skills as well as helping them to set up a micro business together. The women commit to a savings program during the course and then CWISH matches whatever they have saved to help them set up their business. The women were so energetic and enthusiastic – it was infectious and we had such a laugh with them as they performed a short play for us on women’s rights.

We wanted to help CWISH launch this project on a bigger scale and to take it one step further – to “pay it forward”. This was inspired by the movie with Helen Hunt called “Pay It forward”. Bec’s brother, Simon, suggested this movie to us a few years ago and we went straight out and bought it on DVD. The lesson from the movie has been tucked away in the back of our minds ever since as we knew it would play a part in the Mitrataa Foundation at some stage. Rather than repaying the money provided by us to the Foundation as in a typical microloan scenario, they will pay it into an account for the next group of women, ensuring that the program is self-sustaining and helping them to build a network of support for their businesses.

We are very excited to announce that we have just agreed with CWISH to launch this program with an objective of providing basic business, literacy and numeracy skills to 500 women in the next 12 months and setting up 28 micro businesses with them. This is going to require a lot of fundraising so watch this space for more information. If you are interested in helping us to raise the money for this exciting new project, please contact us at adam@mitrataa.org or bec@mitrataa.org.

Bec's IP Awareness Training

This is a posting of work from our trip in October last year.

As many of you know, intellectual property law is one of my passions. So I was really excited to be able to marry my IP experience with my passion for Nepal to run a workshop in conjunction with the Nepal Trade & Export Promotion Centre. The NTEPC offers support to Nepali businesses which want to export their products overseas and they were keen to raise awareness of intellectual property issues amongst Nepali exporters. We ran an afternoon session for the co-operatives and associations as representatives of a broad range of industries initially. The afternoon consisted of 3 sections:

1. An introduction to NTEPC’s services, presented by Mani Lal Shrestha, Deputy Executive Director of NTEPC.
2. Intellectual Property and Its Benefits – An introduction for Nepali businesses, presented by me; and
3. Registration of industrial IP in Nepal, presented by Jiwan Prakash Sitaula, IP Director, Department of Industries.


My session had 2 main elements:

1. To explore the potential benefits of branding and IP for Nepali businesses;
2. To help Nepali companies avoid infringing other parties’ IP when they export their products overseas.

After the presentations, there was a very lively discussion of the role of government in supporting Nepali businesses in developing their IP and a round of questions about traditional knowledge and how it can be protected as this is a core competitive advantage Nepal has.

The afternoon raised a lot of interesting questions for me about the purpose of IP and its relevance to developing countries – is it a tool which is really only relevant to developed economies or could a country like Nepal have valuable IP which it could use in its battle to develop its economy?

As a result of this afternoon, I have been consulting pro bono to the Nepal Pashmina Industry Association as to how they can protect the pashmina name and brand.

We are now in discussions with the NTPEC and WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organisation which has been working with Nepal to help automate its IP systems, about running another series of workshops for different industries as well as preparing some training materials for the Department of Industries to use in its awareness raising activities.

We hope to continue to help Nepal protect its traditional knowledge and other valuable IP in future.

Bec

Busy April Looming!

Happy New Year and Happy Chinese New Year to you all!

Bec and I have spent the first month of 2008 furiously planning for the exciting, challenging and hopefully life-changing projects that we are going to be working on with the Foundation this year. I have mentioned details of some of these previously, particularly with regard to the group of students, parents and teachers from MLC in Sydney who will be working with us in Nepal in April. Details of that trip can be found at http://mitrataa.blogspot.com/2007/07/exciting-plans-for-2008.html.

Dates and the itinerary for that trip have now been finalized and we are working with our various partners in Nepal to work out the final details. The group now consists of 35 people (!) which is enormous and is going to make for an awesome experience for all involved. Watch out for blog entries once the trip unfolds in April as I will be posting regular updates as well as loads of photos.

I will be spending about 7 weeks in Nepal starting from the 15th March and carrying right through until the beginning of May. Bec will be there with me for most of April too. During that time we have organised a formal training program for women journalists as a result of the fantastic forum we ran with Janet O’Connor in Kathmandu last year (http://mitrataa.blogspot.com/2007/11/women-journalists-forum.html). Janet will be returning to run the course which promises to provide loads of useful tools and ideas as well as continuing to establish a network for women in journalism in Nepal. We are proud to be working with the Nepal Working Women Journalists Association on this project.

Another of our friends, Libby Hathorn, an award winning Australian author, will also be visiting Kathmandu in April to establish the first 100 Views program in Nepal. The program is a teaching project focused around students doing creative works based on places/things of significance in their school’s area (more information can be found at http://www.100views.com.au). We will initially be running the course in the model school we have recently started working with in Maijubahal, Kathmandu. Once Libby has trained the teachers in how to implement the program, we will then be following this up with the MLC group who will start to implement the program with the students. It promises to be an amazing creative alternative to the standard teaching methods so often favoured in Nepal. The results of the students’ work will be shared with other schools who have participated in the project through the 100 Views website.

So as you can see April is looking pretty busy for us, but all of the programs will be so much fun as well as providing great opportunities and experiences for all those involved. In addition to this, we have started discussions with one of our partners in Nepal for the establishment of a massive initiative that could potentially affect the lives of around 500 Nepali women!!! Stay tuned for more information on this project in the coming months.

All of these projects are the result of inspiration from people saying to us, “I want to get involved in the Mitrataa Foundation – what can I do?”. Everyone has something to offer the people of Nepal. So if you would like to spend some time there – whether it be a few days, a few weeks or a few months – let us know and we can tailor a program for you.

We hope 2008 has been fruitful and fulfilling for all of you so far, and we look forward to sharing more news and details of our work as the year goes on!