WELNepal 2008 Update
This year WELNepal has continued the education of the women who took part in last year's basic-literacy classes. Approximately 325 women in fourteen villages will receive six more months of advanced literacy classes in 2008. In addition, in association with its Nepali partner organization, WELNepal has funded eighteen new basic-literacy classes for 540 women who had been eagerly awaiting their turn to start learning their Nepali ABCs.

WELNepal's lecture series on women's health, family health, and ecology in our six target areas was so successful that we went over our budget to meet the needs of both women and men, many more of whom took part in the training than was expected. The four libraries WELNepal started since 2007 not only for women, but for anyone who enjoys reading and wishes to borrow books, have been such a success that WELNepal has deposited new books therein and opened four new libraries in areas with concentration of literacy classes.

WELNepal also initiated an eighteen-week training course in new agricultural methods without the use of pesticides or insecticides. Women from three villages attend a weekly class in growing organic vegetables. It is our hope that they will incorporate some of the techniques they learn into cultivating their family gardens and fields.

WELNepal is proud that all of the above literacy classes, libraries, and agricultural course it planned last year came to fruition. Now it's time to make plans for the coming year. Because literacy is the foundation upon which further education is built, in 2009 WELNepal plans to continue offering literacy classes for as many women as is financially possible. To enhance the education of the women living in the eight areas that currently have WELNepal-funded libraries, WELNepal also plans to continue its series of lectures on ecology.

WELNepal has initiated a small program to fund those young women who wish to continue their schooling. Our much loved and trusted project co-ordinator in the field, Harimaya Bhandari, is accepting applications from those who fit our qualifications (damned smart and dirt poor). In order to keep these young women in school and away from arranged marriages they are not ready for and don't welcome, WELNepal will cover the costs of their education beyond the high-school level.

WELNepal has always hoped educating women will change the accepted norm of keeping young girls out of school and at home to help tend to household and farming chores. Our question to those women who have enjoyed our literacy classes has always been, “Since you now know how important literacy is, are you going to send your daughters to school?” With that in mind, another of WELNepal's projects next year is to fund the education of some of our women students’ young daughters at private schools, which provide a better education than the overcrowded government schools.

WELNepal also plans to introduce a “refresher course” for those women who have completed their fifteen months of basic and advanced literacy classes. We don't want the women, especially those who live in villages far from our libraries, to forget what they've learned.

Finally, all of the women in our target areas want income-generating programs. In other words, they want to make some money. Who can blame them? WELNepal will begin working with women's groups on small income-generating programs, such as candle making, marketing local products, growing and selling mushrooms, and perhaps growing and selling organic vegetables.