Last week we had a very special, colourful, emotional and wonderful day! In staggeringly pleasant weather, along the banks of the Mai Khola, we celebrated the most intensive part of the amazing journey of the ladies through their training.
The weather should have been dreadfully hot or the rain should have been pouring. It looked like it may pour at any second as black clouds filled the sky but it never did and those same black clouds kept us cool.
Nepalis do picnics really well and this was no exception. We all piled into a bus (as easily as one can pile into anything where the step is one metre off the ground) and powered along the East West Highway to the river while listening to the sounds of the ladies singing beautifully.
The “karyakram” (program) was a full one and started with an evaluation. Each lady openly shared her thoughts using the evaluation tool she had learnt-what worked, what didn’t and what should we do differently next time. There was lots of wonderful discussion and then trainers and the board members participated.
Overall, there was a strong sense that something pretty special had happened with some profound changes happening at many levels. There were wonderfully constructive suggestions too, for alterations and changes. We have been doing ongoing evaluation reports for the Australian Embassy and if you’d like to read these in more detail, please contact directly.
The photo above shows one of the ladies who participated in the tailoring training telling us how it was for her. Each lady also shared her long term goal which will be reviewed in three months time to see how she is going and what support she needs.
It is clear that in some areas, further training is needed before the ladies are realistically able to earn money independently. As soon as we have raised some money, the tailoring ladies will get another month of training focussing on the sewing of school uniforms-a big money spinner-as this could not be adequately covered in the time available.
One of the tailoring ladies will not do this training as she is happy at this stage to open a small mending and repair business in her village and this is very appropriate given her situation. The ladies making pickles, incense and masyaura and ready to roll and in fact have been. They just need more experience in sales and this is being arranged.
The computer ladies have each identified specific areas of need and interest including bookkeeping, Photoshop and Nepali font typing. Again, we have to wait until we raise more money, but we are determined that the ladies will have access to this so are working towards this.
They are also using money they are earning making jewellery for the local market to raise a contribution towards their training. For some ladies, ongoing training is not an option for a number of reasons and we will be discussing other options with them.
For the ladies working with polymer, there is a slightly nerve inducing lull in proceedings as we wait for feedback and orders from ACP regarding the latest samples we have sent. And for our resident polymer trainer to return from some time in Australia.
During the lull, they are working on designs for the local market and for a Community Open Day we are planning for October. The ladies in this group will join Sharmila, Gita, Kumari and Goma (the “old” clay ladies) to be come our “polymer people”. All these ladies now need to consolidate and refine their skills and we are making exciting plans to increase our focus on design issues now that they are becoming more proficient at technique. Stay tuned.
I could go on and on but won’t. (Can you believe the internet connection I am using here in Australia where we are for a few weeks is nearly as bad as home?) I will let some pictures speak for themselves.
We do apologise for the break in transmission but it has been very very busy. Now it will be the feast or famine situation. Expect a flurry of updates!
Before going any further, we want to say a big congratulations to Keith and Morag Napier of Australia. They have just celebrated 50 years of marriage. In itself, this is magnificent, but the great news for Sammunat was that part of their Golden Anniversary celebrations included inviting guests to donate money to us instead of giving gifts! Congratulations and thank you Keith and Morag!
At the moment, any money is going towards repayments for the generator which has arrived and has well and truly been used. It arrived on an “icky”
And installed with a minimum of fuss and no need to turn off the power.
We have successfully cooked several batches of beads and use it maybe every second day for an hour or so to cook what we need. It has made life SO MUCH EASIER! We will keep you posted with how we are going with paying it off.
Energy from our Japanese visitors!
A quick post about energy…the presence of and the lack of.
We are energised and enlivened following all our visitors. Jonathan and Yuko are back home in Japan but we are missing them and valued so much their encouragement, wisdom…and Japanese sweets.
Yuko ran some impromptu beading instruction sessions and shared some gorgeous designs that we are going to trial with ACP. She bought a wonderful and delicate Japanese sensitivity. Some of us here can be a bit in your face with our jewellery.
Beading lessons
They loved our pickles and saw the clothing the tailoring ladies produced. Both provided a wonderful sounding board for us based on their experience in so many areas. They listened patiently and sympathetically to our tales of woe about load shedding which they experienced first hand. A massive lack of energy.
For some time, we had only three hours of electricity per day and on some days that was between 3.00 and 6.00 a.m. When we did have electricity, it was not enough to get our oven for bead cooking up to the required temperature. This meant batches of undercooked, brittle, useless beads. And clay is so carefully used here!
Our solution was to carry the oven back to Kopila’s house to use at night when the power was a tad more consistent. Variable temperature control takes on a whole new meaning. As you can imagine, shortages have been a source of massive frustration for the ladies doing the computer training too. They have been going to training at various times as soon as there is a hint that the line may be on. Planning has become a challenge.
After much consideration, we have decided to purchase a generator. There is not even enough power to run an inverter, the common way of augmenting the electricity supply.
This is a big and unplanned expense for us but there really are no alternatives and our orders from ACP have been coming in steadily. If some of the ladies are to be self-sufficient selling the polymer beads, we need to be able to deliver those beads in a timely and predictable and well-cooked manner. We can’t afford to lose more polymer clay.
We are hoping to be ready for web-site sales later this year so we need to be able to have at least one hour of reliable and predictable power a day. We are aware of the environmental concerns and will be very careful about our use of the generator-not running it for fans although that would make life more pleasant!
Later in the year, when we are on top of our ACP orders and can get to work on other things, we will sell some special items wherever we can to retrospectively raise some funds for the generator but any small donations now would be most gratefully received.
Eating sweets!
The intensive phase of our course is almost over. The ladies are now focussing on the income generation skill component and on coming up with their own “Ma sakcchu” (I can) goals of what they’d like to acheive in the next six months.
It has been exciting listening to them share their plans and dreams. Some plan to set up a small business selling their pickles door to door; others want to take their tailoring further and yet others are working out how to raise money making beads to get more computer training in specific areas like typing up documents in Nepali font, or getting Photoshop skills so they can work in photo labs which are just starting to be set up here.
It is a testimony to their resilience, courage and bravery that they have so much energy in spite of the many obstacles. As I type now, we are experiencing another “indefinite strike” called by the Maoists that will again bring industry to a standstill and result in even greater food shortages in isolated areas. Travel will be limited to rickshaws and motorbikes. Shops will be closed-the owners “punished” if they try to conduct their businesses.
In this climate, sustained hope and optimism is very admirable. And energising.
We’ve loved having our visitors and hope they realise what a joy it is to us when people visit. Our “Aussie invasion” was great. Rhonda and Geoff Coleman were so enthusiastic and inspiring to be with. The spirit of Bev and John MacLaren who couldn’t come but were part of the Coleman package was also acknowledged!
Rhonda and Geoff witnessed one of the income generation skills training days in all its chaotic glory! Excited ladies producing pickles and bread rolls, flower beads, necklaces, children’s clothing and then the calm computer crew returning to make us all chiya and add to the merriment. The photos below show Saroswati singing a welcoming song that she composed especially for the visit and some of the ladies with their new friends.
Then Susan Grace, Australian Ambassador, and Sanjana Pradhan from the Australian Embassy visited and again encouraged us with their generous and warm response to what was happening. They emphasised the Embassy’s enthusiasm for programs that empowered women and had very tangible outcomes and talked about the DAP program as a way of finding out more about what was happening at a grass roots level and in regional Nepal. The Australian Government already funds Health and Education programs very generously through the Nepali government. The Direct Aid Projects are specific and targeted funding and we are one of 17 projects that received the funding.
The ladies of Sammunat were inspired by the fact that, at the moment, the Australian Ambassador, the Governor-General and the Deputy Prime Minister are all women. The Ambassador spoke so warmly with each of the ladies and posed with enormous grace and patience for “too many photos”. These have already been printed up and taken home to be treasured by the ladies. We are truly grateful to both Susan and Sanjana for braving strikes, heat and mossies to visit us! I hope the photos convey some of the joy of the day.
We are now nearing the end of the ten week “all-together” component of the training although the income generation work continues for another 5 weeks. The ladies are now setting their own 3 and 6 month goals. For some, this is clear cut and they are already beginning to establish their own small businesses.
For the achar and incense ladies, their early marketing efforts have been very encouraging. For the polymer clay ladies, we are hoping that samples sent off to a Fair Trade organisation in Kathmandu will mean some more orders leading to regular work. We have plans to establish sales from our website later this year so that will be another avenue for their sales.
Hot off the press, we have put below a photo of two of the “clay ladies” wearing our sample tilharis….but more of that next time.
Other ladies, such as those doing the basic computer course, will need more training. All of us have to work around load shedding but for the computer ladies whose training is so dependent on power, this has been really tough!
Power is available in four hour sessions and the day time power is very erratic (ask the clay ladies about trying to warm an oven with “bad bijuli!”). They have done so well and go early whenever possible to maximize their computer time.
La! Enough for today. We have some very special visitors this week coming from Japan and will tell you all about that next time. Without Jonathan Lloyd-Owen’s support and encouragement from very early on, we’d still be in our noisy dusty garage on the highway dreaming about space, comparative silence, furniture and training programs so we are delighted to be welcoming him and his wife Yuko soon.
There has been great excitement in Birtamod-for a variety of reasons. We are almost half way through our Newstart training program and it has been wonderful. The ladies haven’t let anything stop them from coming and to our absolute delight, we have had no one dropping out.
And the other causes of our excitement? Well, in no particular order…
First
We have had our first “official” European order for our jewellery via ACP, the Association of Craft Producers. ACP marketers took our products to a Fair Trade Fair recently where they were greeted with great enthusiasm. Many samples were taken and one on the spot order to the Netherlands made. We are still trying to stockpile but this seems a somewhat elusive goal!
Second
We are having some special visitors. Next week, Rhonda and Geoff Coleman who have been wonderful supporters from Australia are arriving (strikes permitting!) and we are really looking forward to showing them around. We hope they will get to see the income generation training in action!Then, a couple of days after that, the Australian Ambassador, Susan Grace and Sanjana Pradhan, the DAP coordinator for the Embassy, along with Susan’s husband, are coming to visit. Like Rhonda and Geoff, they are braving the unpredictability of the east and we are delighted that they are making the effort. We’ll post photos and details of both visits next time!
Third
In the proposal form for the funding, one of the questions asked was “How do you think your project will impact on the wider community?” Based on our experience, we knew that women would be enthusiastic in sharing what they had learnt with others but still weren’t quite prepared for how powerfully that could happen. We already have a waiting list for our next training program, based on word of mouth recommendations from the ladies currently training and a life has been changed.
Kalpana is from a remote border community and is doing the tailoring and cutting training as well as the two day a week advocacy/ human rights etc training. She heard of a family in her village who have a blind daughter. Two men on a motorbike came to town and offered the parents NRs 50 000 and the promise of “treatment overseas”. All they had to do was sign a form allowing this girl to be adopted.
Kalpana was suspicious as she had just learnt about the laws relating to adoptions and disability but decided to check things out rather than take them on immediately. She approached the two men and said that she was a poor woman with two children and that she was interested in having them adopted. She wanted to know about the process. “No process,” they answered. She just needed to sign the paper and take the money.
She persisted. Surely there must be other paperwork? No they assured her. No paperwork. This confirmed for Kalpana that the whole thing was illegal and she told them they had better leave or she would call the police. Apparently they left before she finished the sentence!
This little girl would most probably have been used as a beggar in India. Her parents were very grateful to Kalpana as they were suspicious too but torn at the thought that they may have been denying their daughter healing treatment.
When Kalpana shared her story in the Conflict Resolution class, there was spontaneous clapping and cheering. Deservedly so!
Two days of each week of training are spent all together learning about human rights, health, the law, advocacy and a range of other things. Then, on Tuesday, we break up into four groups for the specific income generation learning. And recently, chilies have dominated.
In the kitchen the ladies have learnt to make achar (pickles) under the watchful eye of Anju didi, our pickle queen. Pickles are now made, bottled and labelled and this week is sales and marketing training where Anju will take the ladies to learn tha art of door to door sales. Next week they get stuck into dhoop (incense) so the smells emanating from that room will be different.
Here is Anju, our achar didi and some of the products.
In the front room, the polymer clay ladies have also been surrounded by chilies! We are making chilies to learn how to do a Skinner blend and also because we will be sending a range of Chili Jewellery to ACP to see if they want to buy some.
If the reaction from the ladies here is anything to go by, we are onto a winner. We are in the middle of making chili earrings for each participant so they will be perfect for general consumption. So to speak.
Here is Pramila bashing her Skinner blend-with love-and creating the Chili Choker!
The tailoring ladies are already making children’s clothes and made their first sale last week! And we make sure we tell the computer training ladies just how much fun we are having!
Our photo shows Rupa looking happy with herself as she learns how to make babies’ clothes which are in high demand here.
