Current Issues in the context of FTGU’s Work in Nepal

Written by Nick Abraham and Joseph Wehbe (FTGU Directors)

● Continued Infrastructure Issues

○ Poor quality of health services■ Currently being addressed in the community with ongoing development of

the HAPSA Health Centre: This facility has the following shortcomings however

● No Ambulance● Small facility with much development and local training required

■ Nepal’s Health System is dominated by private ambulance services, with no generic contact numbers (often need to know an ambulance driver personally)

○ Education■ Physical Infrastructure for Education in the community is rapidly

developing. Following FTGU’s fully funded reconstruction (and improvement) of the Bandevi Manichud School to increase capacity from 250-450 students, Government is now looking to fund another education facility for FTGU to build (for more classrooms).

■ No metric or recognisable standard for the quality assurance of the education in the community.

○ Hygiene and Sanitation■ See Toilet Report. Approximately 73% of the community do not have

access to suitable toilets. Currently being addressed with Toilet Program, engaged in partnership with local government.

■ Waste Disposal: No facility for waste disposal or recycling in the community. Currently excess waste is burnt which is not an environmentally viable solution.

○ Irrigation■ Community lacks any form of irrigation. This is an infrastructure issue

provided a large portion of the community relies on agriculture for both a means of feeding as well as basic income. Due to rain patterns in Ghumarchowk, habitants here can only farm for 8 months a year. A functioning and sustainable irrigation system would therefore increase yield by 50% for those relying on agriculture.

○ Severely inadequate roads and transport infrastructure.

● Cultural Differences

○ Treatment of Women in the Community and Workplace, Including Pay Gaps. ○ Lack of history of personal finance management. ○ Lack of experience in formal working environments: Slower working speeds○ Culture prescribes 136 Festival Days Per Annum

■ Death Ceremonies are 3 weeks in Duration. ○ Inconsistency regarding timing and lack of value for punctuality. ○ Omens and Superstitions in the culture (Relevant to building)

● Human Resources

○ Lack of access to skilled volunteers○ Over-reliance on Nick Abraham [Typically works 5am to 10pm] in Nepal for the

following: ■ Project Development for Charitable/Donor-Funded Projects■ Project Management of Charitable/Donor-Funded Projects■ Sourcing of Projects■ Running and Start-Up of Social Business (Interlock Construction, Current

Manager and source of majority of Business Development, Quoting, Factory Management, Project Management)

■ Assessing Social Business Proposals■ Education Facilitation: e.g. construction training, english classes,

computer classes

Current Resources in the context of FTGU’s Work in Nepal

● Government Support

○ Nepal: ■ Local Government (Municipality) has begun to collaborate directly on

Projects, such as the Community Toilet Program (Equal subsidy with FTGU) and proposed additional education facilities near the Bandevi Manichud School

■ Hitman Tamang, a former social worker in the area and worker with FTGU for 4 months as Director is now an elected President of Ward No. 8 Shankarapur Municipality, Manager of Two Communities.

○ Australia:■ Maintain a relationship with the Australian Ambassador to Nepal who

provides advice from a holistic development perspective and in navigating local culture.

● Human Resources

○ Nepal: At any one time, 20-25 Employees in Nepal in the Sustainable Business Interlock Construction - high demand for jobs

○ Australia: 4-6 unpaid part-time volunteers, tend to be time-poor and slow in recruitment

● Network

○ Advisory Board Australia: Comprised of Senior Individuals from a range of professionals experienced with other similarly oriented organisations

○ Nepal: Extensive Local, State and Federal Contacts which allow us to operate efficiently whilst still within legal lines.

● Financial○ Fundraising Yield in the first financial year period in 2016/2017 was

approximately $80,000-90,000, with only one fundraiser coordinated by From the Ground Up

● Donor/Supporter Profile

○ Majority of Donors are between the ages of 40-70, comprised of an intimate cluster of both family and community contacts

○ Supporter Profile is more diverse, which a large youth appeal ○ Facebook Page Followers Analytics Below:

Narratives Of Individuals: (Include gender differences→ Different name)

Male: Demographic Day to DayInfant For young infants in Ghumarchowk and Sankhu a day to day routine will include waking

up and playing around until 8:00 am. They will have their breakfast and then be required to walk around 1.5 hours to school uphill (7km). It takes them this long because they are children and cannot move as fast. In the Winter months it is colder and will take them around 2 hours to walk to school.

Teenager A Teenager from Ghumarchowk will normally have to be awake at around 5:00 am to attend class that starts at 7:00am. Class will run for 3 Hours until 10 and then the kids will return home and then not do anything for the rest of the day. Mainly Sleep or study. They do not normally earn income or assist on the farm as now it has become socially uncommon to do such activities.

Young Adult Young Adults will normally either A) try and find a job or B) if they don't have a job attend a small cafe and drink tea or eat small items all day until the day is done.

Adult Adults daily routine normally (Surendra as an example) Would wake up around 5:00 am and then go from his home to his farm and make sure that the water systems are all working and that the crops that he has have not been damaged. His livelihood depends on the success of his crops. He would then normally return home and because he didn't have a job would either drink or play cards with friends and then the day would quite often repeat.

Mature/Middle Aged

A mature or middle aged man that is unemployed will generally do the basic farming work. After the farming work is done because they don't have any work or any activities to do during the day. It is common to drink excessive Roxy (High strength rice wine).

Key Personnel Summary

Damphu Ghlan

Damphu Ghlan: Age 33

Before working with FTGU, Damphu worked abroad in Malaysia for 3 years. Damphu and his wife Tirthramaya had their first child Sangita. The next day Damphu had to be on a plane to fly to Malaysia for work, to bring in money to support the family. Damphu would be treated horribly whilst working abroad, being abused for trying to call back home and constantly made to feel inferior. After his 3 years in Malaysia, he returned home to be with his young family. His young daughter Sangita didn’t recognize damphu and took a lot of convincing to be comfortable with damphu staying in the family home. Damphu sold clay and did small contract jobs labouring here and there to make ends meet.

After Nick (FTGU) arrived to the village, Hitman (the village leader and now local Mayor) brought Damphu down to the first school construction site and introduced Damphu to Nick. From Day 1 Damphu has worked with Nick. Damphu now manages 4 projects and is currently learning more of the managerial side of the organisation and less construction. We hope he will one day run the operations entirely on the ground in Nepal for the company Interlock Construction.

Bishnu Devi: Age 25

Before working with FTGU and Interlock Construction, Bishnu used to paint for a small company making large traditional paintings and murals. Bishnu was getting paid 8000 rupees a month with no food or other benefits, working from 8am until 6pm. Bishnu isn't a typical Nepali female. Normally children of the family no matter what age or gender live with their parents until death. Bishnu has lived and chosen to live on her own and be independent. This is extremely rare in Nepal and upon hearing about the job opportunity with Interlock Construction and FTGU she jumped on it for in her words, “The opportunity to learn and grow”.

Bishnu is now Office Manager and has learnt to use tools like Google Drive, printers, computers on a more advanced level, and her English is continually improving. Her wage now as a base is 12,000.00 Rs per month and with overtime will likely get around 15,000.00 Rs per month almost double her previous wage. She has a great work ethic and is never late. She now organises all the staff in the brick factory for their daily schedules, meets with customers and walk-in’s who have questions about the brick. She is learning to take over management roles in conjunction with Bina in the brick factory to ensure a good workplace and smooth operation.

Surendra Tamang: 32

Surendra is one of the current Site Managers of Interlock Construction and has worked on every FTGU project since the beginning. Surendra before working with Interlock Construction was one of the poorest men in the village. He lost his home in the 2015 earthquake and had hit rock bottom. The village nominated Surendra as the most deserving and most needy person if any NGO was to come in and do any rebuilds. He would be the first person to receive any assistance if any came.

On the first school build we did Damphu brought Surendra down and said he needed a job desperately and would do just any labouring work as he didn't have any construction or physical labouring experience. Two years down the track and Surendra has become a Construction Site Manager for us on the Bandevi School building project for FTGU. He manages employees, materials and general inventories as well as ensuring the quality of the work for us on site. He has come a long way from where he started and is just another great example of the development that can occur internally when one has access to opportunity.

Hitman Tamang 34

Hitman Is possibly one of the most amazing men that we have had the pleasure of meeting. Hitman, like Damphu, went overseas for work to earn money for his families survival. Upon return, Hitman had made a lot of money comparatively to Nepal's expenses and decided to reinvest his money into different sections of his community to sustain himself here in Nepal. He then worked unpaid for 7 years managing the presidency and development of the Ugratara School (Which FTGU also had a hand in rebuilding after the earthquake) for his young family to have access to education in his community. He didn't want to leave even though he could have, and instead worked unpaid to ensure the development of education within the area so his kids and his community could have access to opportunity.

Hitman welcomed FTGU in as both a charity within the community and then as a business, as he knew that it would be good for the village’s development. Hitman helped us to start a business in the area and was a Managing Director of Interlock Construction for a short period of before being becoming a local leader in the Government of Nepal, allowing him to implement changes in his village on a larger scale. FTGU now has a very strong partnership with Hitman in his role in Government. Hitman will tell plans he has for the community and then FTGU consult on how to go about getting it all done. We will continue to with him for what we can assist in (not necessarily financial and going forward there will be less financial commitment as we have previously put in; working towards the redundancy of our organisation in the area) and see what collaboration possibilities are possible.

Hitman has committed a majority of his adult life to the development of his own local community. He lives by the same values of FTGU and his current position as a local Government Representative means that he will be able expand his reach. It is our goal to supplement his impact, where Government restrictions currently are (financial, policy etc.)

Bina 22

Bina is a lady who also lives a life that is vastly different from traditional Nepalese practices. From the village of Ghumarchowk, she is one of the first female employees. She completed very basic education, leaving to assist in agricultural duties such as milking the cows in the evening and selling them in Sankhu in the mornings. For a period whilst starting with FTGU, she would sell the previous night’s milk in the morning, come to work and then work on the farm and prepare the next day’s milk in the evening.

The inspirational part about Bina is her attitude. She is very strong in character and very diligent in her work. She currently is the Site Manager of the brick factory, making up to 400 bricks a day. She also takes orders from clients and orders materials over the phone. It is uncommon for women like Bina to have managerial roles, a culture that FTGU would like to see change.