Some things to think about...

I have been doing some research for background on some of our projects and came across some very disturbing statistics regarding literacy in Nepal. Of course it is no secret that there is work to do in this area – in fact that is why we are doing the work we do – but it is still quite confronting when you see the numbers.

The 2001 census rates Nepal’s literacy for people over 15 years old at approximately 49%, this ranks Nepal in the bottom 20 countries in the world. However when broken down by gender the situation, perhaps unsurprisingly, is much worse. Whilst around 63% of males are literate only 35% of females are so lucky. The World Bank recently estimated that of the 867 million illiterate adults in the world today, 64% are women. So Nepal is not alone in having such a disparity in its population’s literacy.

Many reports and studies continue to show the many and significant advantages to a country when females are given a chance at an education. Some of the main benefits suggested by the UN of investing in women and girls are listed below.

• It has a multiplier effect on productivity, efficiency and sustained economic growth for the country.
• Women who are educated tend to have fewer and healthier children, and those children are more likely to attend school.
• It increases the ability and likelihood of women and girls to protect themselves against HIV.
• Women make long-ranging contributions to poverty eradication and development.

We are proud that our projects, in particular our Dream Catchers and Daisy Chains projects, tackle these problems head on. There are hundreds of other grassroots organisations similar to us out there doing their part to overcome this tremendous hurdle. This means there is a real opportunity for everyone to get involved in some way. As I have said before, all it takes is your decision to become involved. All you need do is make contact and ask the question – how can I help,? So what are you waiting for?

Exciting New Project!

It is with much pride and excitement that we can officially announce our largest and most ambitious program ever! The project is called “Daisy Chains – Empowering Nepal’s Women”.


We have spent the past few months working with CWISH, one of our partners in Nepal, on reviewing needs studies and reports. They have also carried out a number of small pilot programs which have proved hugely successful, so now we are ready to go!

“But what is it?” I hear you ask. We are going to provide a group of 500 (yes, you read correctly) women with basic literacy, numeracy and business skills training. We are going to help them establish a savings plan and also provide them with some seed money. We are then going to mentor them as they set up, in small groups of around 20 each, their own small businesses. This will be a truly life-changing opportunity for these women, who will predominantly come from urban poor communities and living in often unimaginable situations.

The UN recently stated on Women’s Day that studies continue to show that investing in education and empowerment of women has proven benefits for many aspects of the societies of developing countries. You can read more about this here. This type of project also works directly towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

But wait … there’s more! We wanted to make this project sustainable and also find an incentive for the women to repay the seed money loaned to them whilst also invoking in them a sense of pride and honour. We don’t want these women to feel like they are just receiving handouts from a foreign donor and we also want to give them a role in helping others. Therefore, we are introducing the “Pay it Forward” concept into the program. This means that as the loans for the first groups are repaid, these funds will then be utilized to fund the next group and so on. Therefore, once the initial amount of seed money is established, it should only require minimal top ups to maintain and even expand the program!

This is where you come in. We are seeking donors to raise the funds to establish the program as well as setting up the loans for the women to start their businesses. The cost to sponsor 1 group of 20 women is $1,000.00 (AUD). This covers all of the expenses of educating the women as well as the ongoing monitoring and business mentoring. This amount also includes the initial seed money to get establish the business.



So if you and a group of 9 friends joined forces to “adopt a group of women”, it would only cost $100.00 each to make the most enormous impact on others’ lives or you could hold a fundraising event to raise the money. This could be a great project for a group of workmates, a social club, a business group such as a Chamber of Commerce, the list is endless. All it takes is a commitment right now to make a difference. You will receive reports on the progress of your sponsored group at each stage of the program including photos – so you can see for yourself the changes taking place!

We will be posting more details of the program on our website soon and we anticipate an officially launch of the program whilst we are in Nepal during Thulo April 2008. So stay tuned for further updates, and please get in touch if you would like to contribute or help in any way – all it takes is your decision to do something, and acting on that decision.

Hit the Ground Running in Kathmandu!

Namaste everyone! I arrived here on Sunday and it is fantastic to be back! The weather is great, there are plenty of tourists around and there is a general upbeat and positive vibe to the place. The election is still scheduled for 10th April and all indications at this stage are that it will go ahead, good news for Nepal and its people who have been living with uncertainty for far too long.

So first thing Monday morning I started my meetings to make final preparations for Thulo April 2008. I have met with representatives from the Working Women Journalists association to go through the details for the Women in Journalism workshop, a project that they are extremely excited about as are we.

As part of plans for this course I went to visit the office of Equal Access, an NGO that works to bridge the gap between poverty and opportunity through providing improved and equal access to information for all. Expect to hear more about them here soon as they share our visions and passion for Nepal and we hope to establish some joint programs with them in the future. In the mean time, they have generously offered the use of their conference room for our workshop which is a huge help!

On Tuesday I visited Bal Mandir, one of the main orphanages in Nepal and the place where a number of our girls with scholarships live. We discussed the progress of the girls and also their likely needs for the new school year which starts in April. As always, there are more girls needing scholarships so if you or anyone you know would like to help change a life, you can find more information by clicking here.

I also met with our dear friend, Rabindra Puri, on Tuesday. Rabindra is helping us with a number of projects including the visit to Nepal by a group of teachers and students from MLC Sydney. You can read more about this program by clicking here. Rabindra also manages scholarhips for 36 of the girls in our Dream Catchers project. As Rabindra works with a number of schools outside of Kathmandu, demand for scholarships there is greater than ever, so if you can help you know what to do ....

That's all for now. Today (Wednesday), I am meeting with CWISH to go through a number of big and exciting new projects that you will hear more about here and on our website soon.

Stay tuned...

Replying to Posts

This is a bit of a housekeeping entry and also a welcome note as we have recently had quite a few new people sign up to receive our blog updates. So, firstly to the new subscribers - WELCOME!

Someone pointed out to me the other day that if you receive these posts in an email (as most subscribers do), replying to that email does not go to the intended place ie. to Bec or myself. I have checked this with the organisation responsible for handling distribution of our blog and it is not something we can change. What this means is, if you receive a new blog entry by email and you want to send us a comment or reply for some other reason, make sure you enter my email address in the "To" section of your email. Just as a reminder, my email address is adam@mitrataa.org.

In other news, I am madly finalising preparations for my trip to Nepal, I leave for Kathmandu on Saturday (15th March). This trip promises to be the busiest and most exciting ever and I can't wait to get to Nepal and get started! If you haven't read about the work will be doing on this trip you can access it at http://mitrataa.blogspot.com/2008/02/busy-april-looming.html. Stay tuned as I start to give progress updates on all of the new and amazing things happening with the Foundation in the coming months.

As always we welcome your comments and suggestions, particularly on ways in which you may be able to become involved with what we do!

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!