CORE in Nepal

CORE has had ongoing programs in Nepal since 2006. We focus on longer-term activities to help sustain the lives and livelihoods of poor and vulnerable people. We aim to reduce poverty by addressing one or more of its many causes. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we supported prevention and relief activities.

Our ongoing work in 2022 includes:

Rural Marginalized Community Educational Support

Support to very disadvantaged children and women

In April 2017, CORE began a project with Himalayan Human Rights Monitors (HimRights) to give scholarships to Chepang kids in Makwanpur, the district just to the south of Kathmandu. In January 2018, it offered training to the parents to help them improve their livelihoods and their appreciation of the importance of education. The Chepang don’t migrate to the city, they are truly forest people.

HimRights has worked in the area for a few years already and had a field staff person ready to start visiting families to encourage them to send their kids to school and to work with the villages.

Several marginalized ethnic groups inhabit the jungles of Makwanpur district. Their access to services, especially education, has been so limited that only 1% of women can read. The parents often do not understand the value of an education, so the dropout rate of the children is high.

The Coordinator has worked with these communities in other projects and makes frequent visits to encourage the parents to send the children to school. A food allowance makes school attendance more attractive for the parents who struggle to have enough food for their families by collecting wild edibles from the jungle and practising subsistence slash-and-burn cultivation. Some earn minimal wages from day wages as unskilled labourers.

COVID Prevention Awareness and Response

With all your donations, CORE provided funds to support efforts by five Nepali NGOS to assist with isolation centres in rural communities and offering food packages to families who are without their daily wages during this very strict lock down. 

Your help and assistance helps us to help people stay healthy and to help the health workers stay safe while working with their patients.

With these organizations, we determined the priority needs and getting cost estimates for items to help households improve their hygiene and to provide protective equipment for health workers and medical staff working with Covid patients. We helped where there was less support in rural areas and a couple of districts, Dolakha and Chitwan, where CORE has worked before showed the potential to become hotspots. So far, we have provided support these organizations:

• Himalayan Human Rights Monitors in Makawanpur district, where CORE has an ongoing educational program for marginalized children. We are preparing to distribute hygiene materials (mask, soap)  to 4,622 families, PPE with health materials to local health workers, extra food rations to the families of the 100 scholarship students, and a special art class for the students on the prevention of Covid and human trafficking, which has become a problem in families without income during the lock downs.
• Faselung Social Service Committee in Dolakha, where distribution of hygiene materials (mask, soap, sanitizer, medicine) is underway to 1,260 families in rural villages and PPE with health materials is being given to the 24 local health workers
• Clinic Nepal in Chitwan, where CORE provided funds for PPE for medical personnel at a cancer hospital being converted into covid wards
• Stories of Nepal, which is providing food relief and hygiene materials in many districts of Nepal, with CORE’s support is targeting over 500 families in extremely poor villages near the Indian border in Saptari district.
• The Partners Nepal in Mahakulung municipality (far SE corner of SoluKhumbu district) for provisions and oxygen cylinders for local health posts. The fears here are that when the many locals working on climbing expeditions as kitchen staff and porters, return to their villages, they will spread Covid contracted at the base camps.

In April-May 2021, the situation changed dramatically with the double variant that spread much more easily causing more severe symptoms. In the last two weeks of April alone, COVID-19 cases skyrocketed by 668% and the rate of infection in testing is over 20%. Over 25% of Nepal’s  450,000 cases are active now, having been infected in the past 10 days to two weeks. For more data from the GoNepal Ministry of Health, check here.

Please  forward this post to friends and family or  donate today. The needs are great as each partner organization could use more funds.

CORE:  Our Mission

CORE International’s mission is to serve people in poor communities who have been excluded from conventional development assistance to reduce poverty. To help them create opportunities to improve their quality of life through innovative solutions, advocating global responsibility, and working to facilitate lasting change that is guided by the needs and aspirations of the community.

CORE International will work as a partner with the many other Associations within the worldwide movement dedicated to ending poverty.

Objectives

1. To advance education in developing countries by:

• establishing, maintaining, and operating education centres that will provide training for academic schooling, life skills, vocational skills, health awareness /education, appropriate technology, and indigenous knowledge.

• providing scholarships to students attending academic, life skills, and vocational centres.

• providing training and mentoring programs to enable front line workers to conduct educational, vocational, and skills training programs.

2. To relieve poverty in developing countries by:

• establishing, operating and providing livelihood programs and related services for poor, vulnerable, and socially excluded people, and

• Providing emergency financial and technical assistance to the above people.

3. To educate the Canadian public on poverty issues in developing countries.

4. To undertake activities ancillary and incidental to the attainment of the above-noted objects.

About CORE INTERNATIONAL

CORE International focuses on developing partnerships and programs to address the self-identified needs of excluded people. We also work to build ‘bridges’ between groups of people, organizations, and individuals who are able to provide services and support. CORE has identified seven priorities for our development focus including:

• Gender and Social Inclusion

• Literacy, Education, and Participatory Learning and Action

• Sustainable use of resources to improve the livelihoods of the poor

• Primary Health Care

• Micro-enterprise projects

• Appropriate alternative technology and innovations

• Indigenous Knowledge.