Enhancing Education by providing financial support from Seed-Fund

The collected Seed-Funds (NRs 21,27,000) for Ribdung-Jaleswori Education Foundation (REF) are used as per the objectives of the collected fund. The Seed-Fund collected in the name of “Shree Simle Secondary School” is deposited in a cooperative in Kathmandu in Fixed-Deposit scheme and the interest earned from this fund is directly send to this school (once in every three months). The amount sent to this school is used for the payment of the monthly salaries of a secondary level school teacher. Until now (February 2020), the total of NRs 12,50,000 has been already sent to this school for this purpose. There is special reason for sending the money for the monthly salaries of the secondary level teacher. This school was upgraded to secondary level since 2009 but the monthly salaries of teachers at the secondary level were managed by the village development budget. When the government strictly prohibited spending such development budget to the school teachers then regular teaching-learning at the secondary level school became in crisis. So, the villagers and well wishers of this village school started to generate special Seed-Fund to continue regular teaching at the secondary level.

Enhancing community solidarity by promoting collective awareness and practice for the conservation of nature— an experimental curriculum for secondary school students and their families and teachers in a remote village of Nepal

This project, planned to implement in October 2017 to June 2020 is financially supported by “Poul K. Feyerabend Foundation” in Switzerland. The general objective of the project is to enhance “community solidarity” through promoting collaborative actions among the students, teachers, parents/community-members, and social workers (“stakeholders”) in understanding the complex relation between nature and culture of the locality. While, the specific objective is to enhance practical knowledge on the importance of understanding nature-culture relation for biodiversity conservation to the students studying in Shree Simle Secondary School (4S) in Ribdung-Jaleshwori village in Eastern hill, Nepal. The practical knowledge is enhanced by facilitating collective actions among the stakeholders. The collective actions include community species inventory, community sensitizations work, and identify and implement at least an action for mitigating possible challenges.

The students studying in grade nine and ten in 4S will play proactive roles throughout the entire processes; while the teachers of 4S and the members of Ribdung-Jaleshwori Education Foundation (REF) will provide technical facilitation and guidance to the students. In addition, REF members will take an overall management responsibility of this project. Exploring collaboration and partnership with the local government line agencies and other potential development agencies will also be the responsibility of REF members. The head teacher of this school will contribute as the project advisor; while the science or environment teacher (one who involve in this initiative) will be the local contact person of this initiative. It is most important that the parents and community members will be the important collaborators in this initiative who will be the source of practical knowledge to the students. The actions to be carried out throughout of entire processes of the proposed project will be defined and decided by the stakeholders themselves, particularly in the proactive leadership roles of the students studying in grade nine and ten of 4S. So, methodologically the entire processes of the proposed project will be considered as a “self-strengthening processes”.

Enhancing knowledge and leadership capacity of youths for appropriate recognition of bio-cultural rights in Federal Nepal

This project (January 2020 to September 2021), financially supported by Siemenpuu Foundation in Finland aims to facilitate youths for mainstreaming in bio-cultural conservation practices and public policy debates for the appropriate legal recognition of bio-cultural rights of indigenous peoples and forest communities in Nepal. This project is being implemented in ward number 4 of Aiselukharka Rural Municipality in Khotang district, ward number 6 and 7 of Tsum-Nubri Rural Municipality in Gorkha district, ward number 2 of Iccha-Kamana Rural Municipality in Chitwan district, and ward number 15 of Kawasoti Municipality in Nawalparasi district.

Document ICCA Emblematic Case in Nepal for ICCA Consortium

ICCA stands for Indigenous Peoples and Community Conserved Areas (ICCA) and ICCA Consortium is a global organization officially established in Switzerland in 2010 as an International Association under the Swiss Civil Code. It is a membership-based civil society organisation supported by an international semi-volunteer Secretariat based in twenty-two countries. ICCA Consortium is documenting 18 emblematic cases across the world and one of them is selected from Nepal (Tsumba indigenous peoples and their nature-culture conservation in Gorkha district) and it is in the process of being documented. The expert of REF is entrusted for this work.

Strengthening ICCA Network Nepal

The experts of REF is entrusted to facilitate and support ICCA Network Nepal, a lose network of the local communities representing diverse forms of nature-culture conservation, for strengthening the network. ICCA Consortium is providing partial technical and financial supports for this initiative. The conservation agencies in Nepal and beyond namely ICCA Consortium, UNDP GEF/SGP Nepal, WWF Nepal, Red Panda Network Nepal, Bird Conservation Nepal and IUCN Nepal are also in the process of being on boarded in this initiative.

Strengthening Youth Networks for Nature-Culture Conservation

Youth’s Networks are formed and strengthened for enhancing knowledge, capacities, and skills of youths in Nepal for advancing and promoting nature-culture conservation campaigns in Nepal. This initiative is a part of Siemenpuu Foundation supported project. Some of the conservation agencies in Nepal and beyond namely ICCA Consortium, UNDP GEF/SGP, WWF Nepal, Red Panda Network Nepal, Bird Conservation Nepal and IUCN Nepal are in the process of being on-boarded for partnership and collaboration.