Supporting our residential students leads to support whole village…
Raksirang Food Relief Success Story
Niroj Shrestha,
SCLC, Program Manager
ONGD-FNEL is partnering with different Non Government Organization (NGOs) in Nepal. Among the NGOs, Shikharapur Community Learning Center (SCLC) is one which is working in Southern region of Kathmandu District. SCLC is working with ONGD-FNEL since 2017. The main mission of both partners is to help continue education of school dropouts, their skill development through agriculture entrepreneurship and also help them to bridge up to their school and colleges. The project is mainly working for the education, skill development of deprived; while it is also working for youths and women entrepreneurship focused in agriculture, motivated towards organic movement and application of more technology to cope up with current market situation. Development of a model organic farm is another objective of our project.
But the entire world is hit by Covid from 2019. Unfortunately, the world has to face new situation like lockdown, prohibitory and many more. Thousands of people died with this new disease before scientist could discover medicine, and before public could behave against this new virus. The situation hit each and every part of world. Nepal could not stay indifferent in this case as well. Entire Nepal got locked down and there started losing of jobs by people which led them towards unemployment. People in villages started to starve due to losing income. Mainly in city and semi urban places where people do not do agriculture and are based in daily wages are mostly affected. Places where agriculture production is not good and they are mostly based in daily labor are also affected. During 2020 also SCLC supported some 100 plus families during lockdown. We supported food items which is enough for approximately 1.5 months for each family.
In 2021 again, the 2nd wave of Covid hit India so bad that the affect gradually reached to entire Nepal. Per day more than 50 people died while 4000+ cases increased. The scarcity of oxygen bed, ventilators created critical situation. The situation was so scary that people started lose hope and government seems to immediately fail with lack of technology and capacity. The strict lockdown made it control in some way. But the situation has greater impact among lives of those who are based in daily labor. After we have discussion with ONGD-FNEL team from Luxembourg we got to revise our budget to response against covid crisis. The main essence of the covid response is to work with Municipality and work with common agenda. We did so, we supported Municipality’s mission, worked in collaboration with Community Hospital mainly to purchase oxygen plant. One important project activity that we did is Food Relief Plan of Raksirang Rural Municipality.
In our project, we have some support for low income families, some staffs and residential students’ food support. We have very less budget in this subject. In our board, we decided to spend NPR 30000 for Raksirang because we have some students who reside at Bottle House Project Resident. There are few previous graduate students as well. But the estimated money is too less. We thought for a plan if we could give food for whole village. So, we created a plan and share the words in social media, in closed groups for fund raising. We shared that we have some amount dedicated for Raksirang Chepang Village. Our target is to support 80 Families and total target is to support 1 month’s food which tentatively cost NPR 250,000. In one week, we got so many messages and good signals that we are very near to our success. We are able to raise 417,000 NPR nearly double than our target. We discussed with our supporters and send our plan to increase the family number and increase food quantity so that the food is enough for 2 months. Every supporters, both organization and personal supporters agreed it and they gave full responsibility to SCLC to manage the program.
We are able to get support from Hamro Sano Prayas, Institute for Nepal, Family and Friends Project Japan, Okayama Nepalese Society Japan, Sochai Organization, and some personal donations from Neejan Shrestha, Ram Kumar Basnet, Sangay Palmo and their friends.
The collected fund is utilized to share food items for the 125 families who are based in 7 different villages of Raksirang Rural Municipality namely Simar Gau, Silinge, Quitan, Kamle, Bage Dada, Makal Damar and Damrang. The food items were distributed in coordination with ward no 6 office in presence of Ward Chairperson Mr. Singh Lal Praja. Each family received 60 kg rice, 2 kg lintel, 2 liter oil, soyabean and some soap. The ward office has send us thanking letter and also list of the beneficiary.
The overall distribution program is handled by parents of our beneficiary students who are supported by ONGD-FNEL. Due to critical weather condition, and prohibitory order by government, it is difficult to reach there. There was continuous rain during those days. But, the beneficiary families got to purchase food items from Bhandara Market, take the items to village and distributed in coordination with Ward Office. This is also part of empowerment among the villagers.
Lastly, the main thing that we would like to highlight in this case study is that, if we have good thoughts, innocent mission, love and care in our mind; there are many helping hands. We can imagine, how our 30000 NPR project money created such good impact among 125 families, which counts to more than 600 family members. Ultimately, the mission was great success, the objective was fulfilled. So many families could be helped. We have cases where the pregnant women got food, disabled people got food and entire village got food. And this is only because of our residential student’s relation with SCLC. The connection of Raksirang Students who are residing in ONGD-FNEL/SCLC’s Bottle House project is the reason that 125 entire village family got the food. It is not only food, but love and care from all our donors, from all SCLC Family and from ONGD-FNEL family.
Further, we would like to share one more thought; we understand that, it’s not sustainable idea that we support food for the families, but the situation of village so critical that immediate food support is a must. Whole village is based in daily labor, due to drought in their village, their only food corn has not been good. Later due to heavy rain, they are more issues of road blockages and many more. So, ultimate idea is to support some food to sustain their lives, to save the humankind.