Behli Dairy Project

Update

I marts 2022 besøgte Mejerifolk uden Grænsers formand, Lars Dall Jensen, Belhi-projektet sammen med to frivillige fra vores danske samarbejdspartner Belhi Group Nepal. Projektdokument, budget og afrapporteringsformater blev gennemarbejdet med den lokale samarbejdspartner SEIT, og ikke mindst blev der skabt nogle stærke relationer. Det kommende mejeri fik grundstenene indviet og velsignet af den lokale præst sammen med det danske team, og Lars Dall Jensen hjalp med at få sat nogle streger på tegningerne over mejeriet, således at den danske frivilliggruppe nu kan se frem til at opstarte arbejdet med at træne de lokale i efteråret 2022.

I juni-måned 2021 godkendte CISU en 2-årig udviklingsindsats, som skal give 240 Dalit-kvinder og 240 unge mandlige landmænd i Belhi større viden omkring kvæghold, gødning, grøntsagsdyrkning, mælke- og mejeriproduktion og meget mere.

Socio-economic conditions
The community Belhi is located in one of the poorest provinces of Nepal (Province 2 in the South-East bordering India). Approximately 10,000 people live in the surroundings divided in approx. 1,400 households. Farmers of Belhi are subsistence farmers and constitute 80% of the population. Their cultivation system is traditional and land productivity is low. Only 34,000 hectares (44%) are irrigated while the rest of the area depends on monsoon rainfall.

Nepalese communities like Belhi follow Hindu traditions that go centuries back, where women usually live in isolation and their husbands do not allow them to leave the home. Although caste discrimination is forbidden by law, caste rules do not allow Dalit children to mix freely with children of higher casts. Women are not called by their name but referred to as mother, aunt, sister, hence their identity feeling is weak. More than 50% of the women are illiterate. This project has initially worked to strengthen the women’s identity feeling.

Young men have poor income generating opportunities in the communities and hence more often than not seek better fortune in bigger cities or abroad thus leaving agricultural resources unattended.
This intervention takes place in a stable context. The civil war raging Nepal from 1995-2006 is over, and a new federal constitution of the republic was passed in parliament. Local elections have been held for the first time in more than 20 years. Ethnic conflicts may still occur but are expected to find peaceful solutions.

Climate- and environmental conditions
Monsoon rainfall has become less stable and predictable possibly due to climate change. In 2016, Dhanusha only received 25% of the average quantity of rainfall to the detriment of paddy output. The sharp decline of the rice harvest followed immediately after the earthquake in April 2015. Hand pumps in the villages ran dry. People imagined that calamity was caused by the earthquake in April 2015. But this is hardly the case. Core to this intervention, is to create resilience among the target group and adapt to climate change through sustainable production systems and stable access to clean water.

Since 2012, the Danish NGO BelhiGruppen Nepal (BGN) has worked with a local organization, Social Eco-Innovative Trust (SEIT) on an ambitious vision called Belhi Integrated Rural Development (BIRD) which by 2024, aims at creating a sustainable community with diverse institutions and value generating working places, that are well organized, efficiently managed, and thus serving as an example of inspiration for others. The key instrument towards this objective is the Lokh Patchala organized by SEIT and supported by Hansapur Municipality.

Lokh Patchala
Lokh Patchala (LP) is open village non-formal education for discussion and learning for adults in the village. It is Folk Village School that educates people at different social strata to sit together and discuss different knowledge, skills, and attitudes, making them feel they belong to the community. In Hansapur, SEIT has helped create 13 women’s LP-groups of 20-30 women who meet regularly irrespective of caste affiliation. One of the first assignments was to recount their own history two generations back and two ahead to remind them that they are living individual lives under changing circumstances. Their histories have been written down by themselves if they are literate and if not, by other women who can write. The individual books are illustrated and proudly presented and celebrated at larger conventions, including meals, singing, and dancing.

From this point of departure, LP-groups start discussing common problems in the village, such as lack of toilets and pure drinking water, bad sanitation, menstruation cycles and pads, educational shortcomings, the dowry system and early marriages, poor farming practices, etc. The realization of this range of problems have led to sessions on specific topics where specialists train the women.

The municipalities in the area encourage and sponsor the formation of more LP-groups. Now, 390 women belong to altogether 13 LP-groups, a representative from each of the nine wards (small administrative unit) has joined, and Hansapur Municipality supports with 500,000 Nepalese rupees (approx. DKK 25,000) annually. During natural disasters and the Corona crisis, the organizational setup of the LP-groups play an important role in providing food for poor and elderly people on a voluntary basis.

The strengthening of civil society
As the organizational setup of the LP-groups have proved to be strong and enduring, this intervention will continue working with this structure. The women will be further empowered through this intervention, as they receive new knowledge and tools to manage and improve their own lives, their children’s, and their livelihood. This is further explained in section 3.

This intervention works through SEIT’s LP-organisation. In Nepalese LP means ‘Folk High School’. These groups create and strengthen active citizenship among the most disadvantaged population (Dalits). It is inspired by Grundtvig’s natural law of education stating that when young people of both genders hitherto out of touch meet one another and are guided by motivated teachers, they will start exchanging experiences and ideas and together they will become aware of their identity, empower themselves and find solutions to mutual problems.

This far many good results have already been achieved through the partnership between BGN-group and SEIT. Some of these are:

• LP-groups comprising 390 women meet regularly for empowerment, awareness of democratic and human rights, advocacy, identity strengthening, and organising micro-coops as tools to combat poverty
• A health clinic has been running for four years now. It offers free eye check-up, a dental hygiene awareness program, and workshops on healthy habits, safe pregnancy, and safe delivery, among other things. Through the work in the LPs a need for hygienic pads for menstruation was identified, to enable women to keep working and not stay isolated during their period.
• In 2020, a production of hygienic pads, called SafePad, was established. A small factory gives employment to local women and its products are being marketed all over Nepal.
• A computer house was constructed for basic computer education and teachers’ training.
• A demo-farm is well on its way, consisting of a cowshed for 50 cows, a biogas plant, irrigation system and 15 polyhouses for vegetables, fodder fields, as well as a dairy and a butchery for processing of milk and meat. This demo-farm is planned to be fully operational by September ‘21. It will be the location of agricultural production as well as practical training for an agricultural school planned to open in 2025.
• A cow stable was inaugurated at the beginning of 2020 with high yielding cows moving in soon after.
• A biogas plant producing degassed organic fertilizer and biogas fuelling a generator producing electricity was completed by the end of 2020 in cooperation with AEPC
• A fishpond has been established.
• A drinking & irrigation water project in collaboration with UNDP, AEPC/RERL and Hansapur Municipality was initiated by the end of 2020. This project will provide clean drinking water for all households of Belhi and irrigation for the demo-farm and farmers in Belhi. It will be concluded before the monsoon 2021.
• A Technical School offering admission to young people without an SLC-certificate was inaugurated in 2019. Workshops are equipped with used machinery from Dk. It is supported by CTEVT. Mainly due to the corona pandemic no students have graduated so far.
• A series of teacher training courses have been organised for primary and secondary schools in the area.
• A school for Dalit-children has been established in order to enhance educational opportunities for Dalits The staff of SEIT has been trained in budgeting, reporting, accounting, and preparing audits.

Sommer 2020
Nepal-gruppen har netop færdiggjort tegningerne til et mindre mejeri samt tegninger til et mindre slagteri. Topsøe-familen har bevilget penge til at disse to bygninger kan opføres, samt udstyr indkøbes. Dette betyder, at byggeriet snarest bliver sat igang. Sideløbende er Nepal-gruppen igang med at udfærdige en CISU-ansøgning, således at der kan søges penge til selve mejeritræningen: mælkehygiejne, fødevaresikkerhed, samt produktion af smør, konsummælk og yoghurt.