World Education, Inc.

Quality Education Resource Package (Phase III)
As part of an ongoing effort to increase decentralized decision-making and responsibility for schools in Nepal, World Education has developed the Quality Education Resource Package (QERP) in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, UNICEF, and local partners. The Quality Education Resource Package is a "toolkit" of materials and activities designed to empower parents, teachers and students to address various issues in their schools related to improving the quality of education. Some of the key quality issues addressed by QERP are improved school management, greater participation of parents and communities through PTAs, improvement of school facilities to meet minimum standards, the use of child-centered teaching, improved achievement in Grade One, and inclusion regardless of caste, ethnicity, socio-economic status, disability and working status.

Each school that receives the Quality Education Resource Package is provided with games, posters, art materials, brochures and modules on priority topics, a lithograph machine and radio, and a Resource Manual. They are also given a basic library with reference books and maps for the children. World Education and its partner organizations work with parents, teachers and students to make use of these materials by visiting the schools regularly to help them identify the priority issues they want to address. Initially piloted in 2000 schools, there are plans to expand the use of the QERP to all 26,000 primary schools across the country with support from UNICEF and Danida.
Contact Information

Starting New Lives (2006 - 2008)
Nepal has a long history as a source country for young girls and women being trafficked for sexual exploitation in India. In fact, in recent years there has been a growing awareness that there is also internal trafficking for sexual exploitation in the entertainment industry and for child labor. Many Nepali adult prostitutes in India enter the profession at the average age of 14-16 years as a result of trafficking and are kept enslaved and in debt bondage for approximately three to five years. Children are trafficked from Makwanpur and other Tarai districts to work as circus performers in India. Domestically, girls and young women are trafficked for work in massage parlors and cabin and dance restaurants in Kathmandu; while these girls are neither bonded or enslaved most have been the victims of deception as to the nature of the job. The conflict in Nepal also had a major role in increasing the numbers of girls migrating from the villages in search of employment who end up in these working places. In most cases, very few of these young women return to their villages due to the stigma and discrimination associated with their work and the lack of alternative income generating activities.

The Starting New Lives Project has been funded by USAID to complement work being carried out by World Education for child victims of trafficking.

Education is the main strategy being used both to support trafficking survivors and to prevent girls at risk from being trafficked. Other interventions include safe shelter and outreach into entertainment establishments where trafficking victims work.

There is a special focus on the Dalit and Tamang communities that have been more susceptible to trafficking.
Contact Information

Brighter Futures Program
In Nepal, one of every three children is a child laborer, with an estimated 2.6 million children between the ages of five and fourteen working on farms, in factories, in businesses, or in other people's homes. World Education is implementing a four-year project to combat child labor through education. World Education's Brighter Futures Program works closely with the International Labor Organization's International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor in Nepal. Brighter Futures activities are carried out at two levels: in communities where children come from or where they currently live and work; and at the policy level with government and international agencies.

World Education and its government and nongovernmental organization (NGO) partners use what they learn from project implementation at the community level to help inform existing and new government policies related to child labor. World Education and its partners work to increase children's access to education, and to improve the relevance and quality of education and training for children rescued from abusive forms of child labor. This includes provision of nonformal and vocational education opportunities, the strengthening of community based education, and the strengthening of monitoring and supervision systems used in primary education and nonformal education programs. Brighter Futures engages policymakers in the continuous review of lessons learned from program implementation and the study of specific barriers to children's participation in order to formulate and improve educational policy on child labor.
Contact Information

Swasthya Chautari
In Nepal, most young mothers live with their extended families and bear a disproportionately large share of the household chores, agricultural tasks, and other livelihood duties. In order to address health education needs among young mothers, the Ministry of Health (MOH) relies on the use of mass media (radio and television) and interactions by Female Community Health Volunteers (FCHVs) with the mothers. The FCHVs are the first contact that families have with the health service delivery system, and they play an integral role in the health education process, especially by referring the mothers to health facilities. However, these young mothers have little access to the mass media, and there is a significant disconnect between the knowledge of the FCHVs and that of surveyed mothers.

Through the Swasthya Chuatari program, World Education is working in collaboration with the Nepal Family Health Program (NFHP), the MOH, and its nongovernmental organization (NGO) partners to provide better health education to the women from the most disadvantaged communities. In Nepali, the Chautari is the village meeting place under a tree where members of the community come to discuss issues, rest, and socialize, while Swasthya means health. Thus, the translated meaning of Swasthya Chautari is "health forum." The goal of World Education's Swasthya Chuatari program is to provide young women with the opportunity to develop their knowledge of essential health issues and practical life skills by creating a safe, open environment for such learning to occur. The program also aims to build the capacity of FCHVs so that they can be more effective health educators of young women. This is being done through the use of World Education's GATE and HEAL curricula. The women and girls also participate in monthly learning circles and listening circles around various health topics in order to reinforce and enhance their health knowledge, as and in community awareness activities in order to share that knowledge.
Contact Information

Resunga Mahila Project
In rural Nepal, women do not have access to credit from banks. If they borrow money from village moneylenders, they are forced to pay back the loan at unreasonably high interest rates. It is rare to hear of female community members saving money and investing those savings into livelihoods improvement because there is no mechanism for them to do so at the local level, especially in remote areas where there is little access to local markets and services.

In Nepal, "green roads" use environmentally friendly, labor-intensive construction techniques to build roads that link isolated, rural village development committees (VDCs) with district centers. In hill districts, green roads have been promoted for the development of secondary road systems to improve access to markets and services for remote VDCs. Green roads bring immediate economic benefits to communities along the road corridor. A skeletal network of "green roads" is being developed in Gulmi and Arghakhanchi Districts that will link the district centers to more remote VDCs. As part of this initiative, expansion of microfinance and economic education will be implemented to ensure that these new routes bring economic benefit to the families that surround them.

To take advantage of those benefits, World Education is working with its NGO partners in Gulmi and Arghakhanchi to reach older women with little or no literacy skills, while at the same time providing opportunities for women with limited formal education to receive relevant nonformal education. By using the Women's Economic Empowerment and Literacy (WEEL) package along the "green roads" corridors, women will increase their literacy skills, and especially their math skills, so that they are better prepared to participate in savings and credit groups and gain knowledge and skills for improving their livelihoods.
Contact Information

Farmer Field Schools in Nepal - The Next Generation (2002 - 2005)
The reality for young women and out-of-school youth in rural Nepal is that agriculture is a major focus of their lives. Over 82% of Nepal's population is supported by agriculture. Rapid population growth has meant that although agricultural production is increasing, levels of malnutrition are still rising. World Education is working with older girls graduating from its Girls Access to Education (GATE) Program and out-of-school youth in its Brighter Futures Program by linking them to farmer field schools (FFS).

World Education works with its nine NGO partners to identify girls and out-of-school youth who have not entered school or who have dropped out. If a community is interested, they form groups of parents and daughters or youth interested in attending a FFS. Once groups are formed, the NGO FFS trainer conducts a Farmer Field School that lasts for approximately 18 weeks, or a full cropping season. During FFS, participating farmers gather in a village field each week to compare their own standard farming practices to Integrated Pest Management (IPM) practices. The primary learning curriculum is the paddy field itself, where most learning activities take place. At the end of the season, girls, out-of-school youth, and their parents share what they have learned with the community through a Farmer Field Day. This is their opportunity to show (and show off to) the rest of the community. Farmers can proudly share what they have learned with their families, neighbors, friends and peers. Through sharing, they also recall the whole Farmer Field School experience and reinforce their own learning.
Read the following success story about the program: Taking on the Future: Building a Better Life through Education and Agriculture
Contact Information

Girls' Access to Education (GATE) Program
In rural Nepal, two-thirds of adolescent girls are not enrolled in formal schools. These illiterate, out-of-school girls are destined for lives of low status and limited opportunities. In 1998, World Education began the Girls' Access to Education (GATE) Program by developing a nine-month literacy curriculum that integrates adolescent health and girls' empowerment information with literacy training. As girls learn how to read, write and do basic mathematics, they learn about basic nutrition, reproductive health, the consequences of early marriage, early pregnancy, unsafe sex, STIs, and HIV/AIDS. World Education developed a series of booklets for the program that focus on the dangers of trafficking, child rights, and safe migration.
Out-of-school girls who participate in nonformal education programs like GATE achieve a basic primary education. This is an extraordinary and life-changing accomplishment for a low-status, illiterate girl, but it is only half the story. Many GATE graduates re-enroll into the formal school system or participate in vocational or practical skills training to continue their education.

In some of the districts where GATE classes are being given, parents have the opportunity to participate in local Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs). As these PTA members gain management skills and learn how to help students maximize their learning, they are in a position to assist the GATE graduates who transition to the formal school system. Recently, the GATE Program has also developed practical vocational training alternatives for girls who graduate from GATE, but who choose not to enroll in school. Included among these alternatives is the Self-Employment Education Program (SEEP), which teaches girls basic savings and credit principles, and gives them capacity to start their own small businesses.

Read the following success stories about the program: Preventing Trafficking and Violence through Education, A Dream Fulfilled, and How Mina Escaped from Being Sold
Contact Information