Community Outreach
Community Outreach Projects at Himalayan Children’s Charities
HCC has a number of outreach projects working to improve communities across Nepal. HCC’s Community Education Initiatives are aimed at raising awareness and building community networks. This includes educating school children on the risks of trafficking using targeted media, distributing educational and hygiene materials for women’s menstrual health, and helping to bring the internet to rural schools.
Current Outreach Projects
Benighat Student Relief Project
In January 2021, the HCC-Nepal team learned of a critical situation in Benighat, Dhading, a rural district in Nepal. This area is home to many marginalized people, especially from the indigenous Magar and Chepang communities, and suffers from widespread poverty, food insecurity, and lack of running water and sanitation. Covid pandemic lockdowns and food supply-chain disruptions severely exacerbated the conditions in these communities. In February 2021, HCC began working with the principals of five local elementary schools in Benighat to distribute aid to families in critical need. Over the last few years HCC has visited the area over a dozen times, distributing warm winter clothing, school uniforms and supplies, hygeine products and food relief packages to over 300 children.
Through grants and donations, HCC has also provided desks and chairs for classrooms in all five schools. This project is currently on-going and you can donate today to help the children of Benighat.
HCC’s Anti-Trafficking Campaign
The rate of child trafficking in Nepal is shocking – UNICEF estimates each year at least 13,000 Nepali children are trafficked to India alone. Domestic and international trafficking are both common, and many thousands of children are forced to work in hazardous jobs or sexually exploited.
HCC has partnered with Cause Vision and SASANE to produce and distribute a Nepali language comic book, entitled “Chameli Goes to School”, which raises awareness and educates students about the dangers of trafficking. HCC has printed and distributed 10,000 educational comic books to children, families and schools throughout the central hill regions of Nepal where children are especially vulnerable.
Distribution of Anti-trafficking comic books to rural Nepali students
HCC’s Health & Hygiene Workshops
In Nepal female menstruation is mired in traditional taboo and stigma. In many rural areas, menstruating women are not allowed to cook food, touch family members or perform normal household chores like cooking, and in extreme conditions are forced to spend their monthly periods in sheds isolated from their homes. These beliefs have led to a lack of education about women’s health and hygiene.
HCC staff conduct seminars and workshops for in rural areas for school aged girls but are also open for adult women from the local communities. Staff also distribute educational booklets on menstrual health created by HCC intern Maia Pandey and supply hygiene materials.
Rural students read ‘Chameli Goes to School
Past Outreach Projects
HCC’s WiFi Program
In 2017, HCC and local partners worked to bring the internet to two remote, rural areas in the Dhading and Makwanpur districts of Nepal. Two WiFi towers were installed, providing internet to 2,200 students and teachers at six schools and a food kitchen. HCC also provided computer literacy training for teachers at the six schools – teaching internet basics, content access for classroom lessons and techniques for computer practicum courses for students.
Rural students use computers connected through the WiFi Project