Introduction  and Background

CHILDREN- Nepal (CN) was founded in 1995(2052BS) as a Non profit, Non political, Non religious civil society organization (i.e. NGO) with the vision of establishing a prosperous society where children are enjoying their rights. It has completed its 26 years of its dedication and service for promoting and ensure dignity, right and  welfare of children, youth and their families who are living under difficult circumstances and deprived from basic right and services and living under the margin of society. It has conceived by Nepali personalities with expertise and long experience in the field of education, health care, social services and child rights. They noticed many children and their families are suffering from  neglect exiting culture of violence, discrimination, exploitation, abuse and forced to deprived from basic right to education, health care and develop self stem and they initiated establishing this organization as a one of the pioneer organization working in the field of education, child rights and social inclusion and social justice and contribute to create self sufficient and equitable society. It had started its service from running a day care service for 12 children and 6 families by running a children contact center, the organization has been directly rehabilitating thousands of children who have been subjected to discrimination, child marriage, sexual abuse, domestic violence, street and labor exploitation to their families and communities every year. It has 7 (3 female) lifelong, 3 (1 female) hennery, 179 (125 female) general members total 189(129 female) which consisting more than 50 percent dalit and ethnical groups representation.

  CN used holistic approach to its social work. Care and respect intrigity, honesty, neutrality, transparency, dignity and inclusion are the key values of children Nepal. Children, women and human rights and social justice are the key foundation of its social work approach. CHILDREN Nepal believes networking, collaboration, cooperation and joint effort to address any social issues and problem relating to underprivileged children and their families. It also believes that education is the key for social change. So CN from its establishment CN has giving its priority to create education and capacity building opportunities to the children from underprivileged and disadvantage family background. CN also believes that family is the key unit of addressing every right of children and key component of the community for social change from the grass root level.

   CN has focused its social works on SDG 1 (No poverty) SDG 4 (Quality Education), SDG 5 (gender equality) SDG 10 (Reduce inequality) and SDG 16 (Peace justice and strong institution). So as children Nepal has already initiated dalit girls education program with the support of German Nepalese Help Association (GNHA) since 1998.To ensure right to education and protect children from their vulnerable situation, CN also initiated social mobilization program with the support of unicef’s and collaboration with Pokhara municipality since 2000 in Pokhara area and started to mobilized civil society for the promotion of children right and have able to   setup of Child Protection Committees in 18 wards of Pokhara Municipality with the aim of providing a local forum where civil society organizations and local authorities can openly discuss the situation of children. This to efforts of Children Nepal has significantly able to bring the children to the school but quality of the education and retention in the school still had become a big challenges and since 2005.Children Nepal initiated teacher training and child friendly school support program with the support of GNHA as a one of the major component of dalit girls education program. Best on the learning from this program. Since 2008, CN has been working directly with government schools to create a child friendly environment at schools in coordination with the District Education system of the Nepalese government also With the support of AC international child support Denmark and had continue it until 2015. At the same time CN also implemented practical peace education program for youth with the support and partnership of ADF/JICA Japan Since 2008 to 2011. Similarly In Parbat, Kaski and Tanahun districts of Nepal CN has been working for the promotion of child rights in partnership with the local authorities and District Development Committees (DDC) with great success. Furthermore, since 1999 CN has taken the initiative to formed and support to mobilized Child Self Help Groups (CSHG) in schools and local communities, which have now been adopted by the education system as a school policy all over Nepal.

CN has a strong network among civil society organizations at local, district and national level, and it has during the years been successful in conducting various advocacy-related activities on the rights of children and their families at local, district and national level.CN also has been running a Suryamukhi Handicrafts and it has been a guaranteed member of the World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO), WFTO-Asia and Fair Trade Group Nepal (FTG-N). Suryamukhi Handicrafts has been striving to empower disadvantaged and low income dalit and underprivileged women by way of developing their vocational skills in sewing, stitching and embroidery. The women of Suryamukhi Handicrafts have an opportunity to earn a fair wages & improve the quality of life for themselves and their families. This allows them to become socially and economically self-reliant. Since 2018 with the view to contribute universal SDG’s goal from the community level by localizing SDG in the local community, CN has been supporting dalit and marginalized families for their sustainable livelihood development with the focus of practicing organic farming and eco friendly technology in their daily life with the support of DIB Denmark,in Lewade and phallapani  community of Annapurna Rural Municipality Kaski and Gunjara community of Myagde Rural Municipality of Tanahu.  Similarly, CN has running learning Resource Center for children since this year with the support of Manisha Foundation UK. CN also running Street children protection and rehabilitation center with the support and collaboration of National Child Right council (NCRC), Pokhara Metropolitan city, Gandaki province Social Development Ministry and Annapurna Rural municipality in Kaski District.

In addition, the organization contributes to the national campaign to ensure children right in the new constitution, annually about 500 children enrolled in school education, technical and vocational education and 500 of their families through income generation and family friendship and cooperative. CN which started its services mostly using local resources has been expanding its services in partnership with like-minded organizations. In this regard, since 1998, German-Nepalese Help Association has been supporting 528 dalit girls through the dalit girl’s education program. At present 260 Dalit girls are supporting from GNHA. Among them 40 dalit girls are continuing their higher education. The entire effort of CN is focused on creative better education of opportunities to children from disadvantage and underprivileged family background. Either its program and project related to livelihood development or program belongs to the teacher training and child friendly school development, vocational training and income generation. The whole its social work result and impact goes to the better education and better live on underprivileged children.

With the view of focusing better education opportunities to the children from underprivileged family background to see their representation in high police and decision making, planning and implementation position of the country. So that real change in the community can be possible.  The organization has developed child education assistance programs with the help of friends of the organization to provide opportunities for thousands of children to study and get employment as well as provide income generation to their families. This program has been developed and implemented in order to make the service provided by the organization Children, Youth and Family Welfare Section of CN. The service is getting more quality as per the changing situation.

Still there are many dalit girls/young women of underprivileged families’ background in the community who are very interested to continue their higher education. Because of their poor families’ background, they are forced to stopped their study and go for low level of work, exploitation and abuse.

According to 2011 census, average literacy rate in Nepal is 65. 97 % with 75.21% for male and 57.53 female. Among them dalit literacy rate is only 63.9% boy and 57.6% for girls.

The national rate of higher education is only 17.6% in Nepal. Still 82.4 % of Nepal children and youth don’t have their access of higher education.

 Mission

  Empower Children and their family for prosperous society and advocate for making the service providers a responsible

Vision

           A prosperous society where children enjoy their rights

Goal

 To empower and support children youth and their families for playing vital role to solve their socio economic and physical problem and facilitate civil societies and government authorities to be responsible towards children youth and their families.

Objective

• To increase access to vocational, practical, technical, life useful basic, higher and lifelong education for children.
• To advocate for execution of practical and vocational education in the community schools
• To reduces violence, abuse, exploitation, early marriage, and discrimination against children.
• To improve socio– economic and social standard of the underprivileged community people through income generating and  livelihood development activities, sustainable agriculture, education, and health care and  promote social inclusion, social justice and  make self reliant community.   
• To lobbying and advocacy for construction of child friendly infrastructures development of private, community, and public sectors.
• To advocate on practical, vocational, and child friendly education system.
• To assist community to be active in environment conservation, management of waste and natural disaster, and minimize adverse effect of climate change.
• To promote fair trade.
• To assist the community on their access to public service and facilities

To enhance capacity of members, committees, and employees of the Children Nepal.