Women Awareness Center Nepal
Looking Forward
WACN is now recognized nationally and internationally as a cost-effective and sustainable organization that works at the grassroots level to assist women in becoming socio-economically independent and empowered. Rates of violence against women are drastically lowered in communities where WACN has implemented its community based development projects. The income-generating schemes and employment opportunities available through the cooperative model prevent parents from selling their children to earn an income. WACN would like to further extend this campaign against girl trafficking to cover more areas of Nepal. WACN''s work is self-sustained because after receiving training in cooperative education, finance, agriculture, and other technical fields, the women participants become the local resource persons, who dissipate their newly acquired knowledge and skills to other community members and communities. Laxmi Timilsina, for example, a village woman, became a Junior Technical Assistant after participating in WACN''s program. Now she conducts training for fellow village women on agricultural techniques. Similarly, Bamiya Chaudhari became certified in biogas plant installations after attending WACN''s training. Now she travels throughout Nepal to install the devices, serving as a model for other villagers. Examples abound of women like Laxmi and Bamiya women becoming successful entrepreneurs after their involvement with WACN. Leaders in their community, they instruct others on the importance of income-generating schemes.
The development of a training and resource center will further establish WACN as a leader in the field of savings and cooperatives for women. WACN will continue to expand its cooperative network as appropriate, but will place a greater emphasis on strengthening existing cooperatives promoted under WACN and other grassroots women’s organizations. Through our training courses, other organizations will be encouraged to apply our grassroots model in their area, further realizing WACN’s vision.
Post civil war, the country requires a lot of work in planning and implementing projects and cooperatives that will survive in the new Nepali economy. There is a growing need for programs such as ours to bring communities together and help them develop institutions that will sustain poverty alleviation in the long run. In this context, we find it imperative to continue developing our program either through the expansion of community based activities and cooperatives into new VDCs and Districts, or through assisting existing women’s groups in institutionalizing their operations to increase their impact. Only through local development do we see the potential for peace in our country.
The development of a training and resource center will further establish WACN as a leader in the field of savings and cooperatives for women. WACN will continue to expand its cooperative network as appropriate, but will place a greater emphasis on strengthening existing cooperatives promoted under WACN and other grassroots women’s organizations. Through our training courses, other organizations will be encouraged to apply our grassroots model in their area, further realizing WACN’s vision.
Post civil war, the country requires a lot of work in planning and implementing projects and cooperatives that will survive in the new Nepali economy. There is a growing need for programs such as ours to bring communities together and help them develop institutions that will sustain poverty alleviation in the long run. In this context, we find it imperative to continue developing our program either through the expansion of community based activities and cooperatives into new VDCs and Districts, or through assisting existing women’s groups in institutionalizing their operations to increase their impact. Only through local development do we see the potential for peace in our country.