CHANCE for Change: Community Development Projects

Sunsari School Building Project

In Nepal the children are often deprived of basic welfare & education; some of the statistics below exemplify just how much these children are in need, and how lucky we are:

• 8/10 women are illiterate
• 50% girls attend school
• 2/10 girls go on to secondary school
• 9% of children die before they reach the age of 5yrs
• 90% of the 2million population live as subsistence farmers
• Average wages in the countryside are £2 a month
• 72% of children have insufficient sanitation

CHANCE is currently supporting a development project in the Terrai - the southern plains of Nepal, an area often deprived of aid and less favoured than the more famous Himalayan foothills.

Panchkanya Village, Sunsari District, Koshi Zone, Nepal.

Background of the project

CHANCE has successfully co-managed a development project in the Terrai – the southern plains of Nepal. This is an area often deprived of aid and less favoured than the more famous Himalayan regions.

In 1997, a big-hearted illiterate farmer donated a piece of land enough to build a primary school in Panchkanya. The local community took that opportunity enthusiastically and collected funds and labour donations in order to make school building. As a result, a five roomed "building" was erected. This so called building is a set of bamboo partition walls providing five open air rooms to teach 205 students (97 girls and 108 boys). To get this far and provide such a facility has been a huge success for the local community. However there are significant drawbacks to the school as it stands, and as such an opportunity for us to help a community who wish to help themselves.

• The floor is bare ground
• There is no roof
• During the monsoon, the school is rendered un-usable
• Following the monsoon there are repairs needed every year
• Noise from one "classroom" easily travels to another
• The teachers work with no office for them in the school

The local people's economic activities are limited - living subsistence lifestyle and some farming. It will be significant step forward if a more permanent and sustainable school building is constructed.

So that is what we have done………

In conjunction with Help Nepal CHANCE has built a permanent construction for the local school with six classrooms, and one office to accommodate 205 students.

Project aims and goals

• To ensure the learning environment is sustainable and available year round
• To provide safe environment
• To protect children from overflow of the nearby stream during monsoon
• To provide toilets (latrines) for both boys and girls separately
• To uplift a level of students education in local community

With the solid grounding of community involvement and adoption by the Village Development Committee the school will be a long term and sustainable facility for many families and indeed generations to enjoy and benefit from. By funding these types of projects we are being inclusive and helping to change the lives of as many under privileged children as possible.

The locals have offered their labour as a "donation" and the Village Development Committee will project manage the construction. We are therefore only providing the materials in order to enable this school to be built by the parents and guardians of those who will attend. The project achieves the objectives of our philosophy of helping people worse off than us, to help themselves.

Funding and Resources

The philosophy of sustainability and self help were at the heart of this project with the following structure for funding and resources:

• Land Donation by local village owner
• Village Development Committee Ownership
• Local community members resource volunteered for building and labouring
• Specialist tasks employed a local tradesman
• CHANCE field Office support
• Materials funded by CHANCE & Help Nepal
• School on completion to be registered as a community school
• Ongoing funding from the government for teaching staff

With all of these elements contributing to a long term and sustainable future for the community we hope to succeed in achieving our goal of making a difference to the children of Nepal by allowing education to be accessible to everyone.

If you would like to help make a difference to lives such as these please click here to make a donation.

Or if you would like to find our more about current projects please click here to contact us.

THANK YOU for your support.