Finishing the First Chapter ✨🏔

As the days go on, the team is becoming more integrated in the village and knowledgeable about the local culture. From attending the morning service in the local church on Saturday, to walking around the village and greeting school children we taught earlier that day; we are definitely feeling more settled into the community.

It has been great to see Project 36 grow, especially in completing more of our aims for our needs and wants assessment. We visited the school that our project founder Chris visited in 2014, Shree Bucha Khani Secondary School, and we were able to implement our educational phase of the project by teaching the children essential knowledge on IDA. We began by observing two primary school lessons, class three and class five, before teaching class ten.

We faced a few challenges, especially in that our pronunciation of the English language was different to theirs, making it harder for the kids to grasp our iron deficiency lesson plan.

Despite these setbacks, we found it very fulfilling to interact with the school community as we feel education has the ability to empower, and we hope that by incorporating education about iron this early on, can help their diet for years to come. Following on from this, the headmaster invited us back for another day, and so we returned and taught class five. It was a great joy to teach such a lively group of kids and to make learning about iron and the effects of deficiency more fun. This helped us when we revisited Jamdar Sher Bahadur Memorial School and taught four classes, from class 4-8.

Meanwhile, the team has been completing surveys of some of the villagers in order to gain an idea of whether iron deficiency is a problem. We used our Nepalese speaking Sanjay as our main translator, and this helped us overcome the language barrier to an extent. The language barrier does persist, but the team is gaining a wide range of vocabulary, especially in the Nepalese names of iron rich foods.

The surveys we took gave us a good idea of local dietary habits, awareness of anemia, thoughts on iron supplements, and more broadly, their main concerns regarding the welfare of the village. We found that water shortages, poor infrastructure and a lack of local employment were amongst the biggest concerns for the villagers we interviewed.

Extending beyond surveys, the pharmacy completed a substantial amount of blood tests on Saturday to get an idea of the varying iron levels of the local citizens. Once analyzed, sf the results suggest that a significant proportion of the locals are anemic or close, then this proves the importance of Projects 36’s work in the village. In response, those found to have concerning low levels of iron content in their blood received iron supplement tablets, as part of a short-term solution.

As we began to close the lid on our first trip here, we met with the local council on Monday morning. We had some important takeaways from this meeting. First, was the fact that there is a serious problem with young women lacking employment and sufficient income in the area. Similarly, a second concern was the plight of young capable men leaving the area for 2-3 years on average, usually to work in Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia & Qatar. The council are desperate to seek new forms of local employment, which we are of course also looking to achieve.

Gulf countries have increasingly significant influence in regions of Nepal, and are huge recruiters for young men for un-contracted positions, commonly in construction and pipeline industries, and under a promise of a healthy income to send back home. This has created a brain drain effect on the community, leaving the area largely absent of whole demographic of skilled men of working age.

Our last meeting took place on Tuesday morning and was with a local women’s institute. Since women seem to make up the majority of the local population here and are the backbone of the working force, we thought it was essential to hear their voices. The ladies were mostly aware that the government were supplying iron tablets, but didn’t believe that locals were informed enough on the issue of IDA.

The ladies in the group voiced their main concerns with life in the village. They highlighted how the farming technology in the village was inefficient, and made their agricultural work very time-consuming. Like the council, water access in the village was another problem for the women’s institute. They recalled how a government training program took place in the village on how to apply water, but they were all too preoccupied with farming and cooking to partake.

To reflect on our work here, the team held a long and constructive meeting on Tuesday afternoon. We brainstormed innovative ideas for the project to implement on return to the village this summer, and made a plan of action in the meantime for the research we will make once returned home.

It is sad to leave after an amazing nine days here in the beautiful Tanahun district of Nepal. But nonetheless we are looking forward to relaxing when we return home and sharing our story with friends and family. We will come home with a thorough need and wants assessment, and a huge amount of exiting and innovative ideas to discuss and research back at university. We finish our trip inspired by this incredible place and optimistic about what the future holds for Project 36!