Support Project Helping HAND for Communities in Nepal

Project Helping HAND: A Multi-Pronged Approach to Support Children and Families in Oda

The Pradiya Foundation is dedicated to improving the lives of children and families in Oda, a remote village in the mountains of Nepal. The challenges these children face are significant, impacting their health and well-being. To address these issues, we have developed a comprehensive strategy known as Project Helping HAND, focusing on four critical areas: Home, Access to Healthcare, Nutrition, and Development. Each component of HAND is designed to ensure that every child in Oda has the opportunity to lead a healthy, happy life.

HOME

In Oda, widespread poverty means that many children lack safe, supportive home environments. They are often exposed to stress, abuse, and forced labor, which can have severe long-term health consequences. Additionally, many children do not have access to basic necessities like clothing, proper hygiene, and a secure living situation. Tragically, neglect and abuse have led to the deaths of several children in the community.

Currently, the Pradiya Foundation provides care for twenty-five children who have been rescued from abusive situations or who face other severe challenges. Our goal is to support families and keep children within their communities whenever possible, only bringing them into our care when absolutely necessary. We provide these children with essential needs such as food, shelter, medical care, clothing, school uniforms, books, and supplies. We also offer a caring environment with dedicated adults who ensure that they have a joyful childhood. Additionally, our education program benefits over 120 children in the community. Your sponsorship helps cover these costs, ensuring that children are well-fed and receive quality education. Funding for Project Helping HAND allows us to continue offering a safe environment and provide counseling and therapy for those who have endured abuse and trauma.

A mother in the village has six daughters and lost three more during pregnancy while carrying heavy loads like wood. Despite facing severe challenges, she continues to try for a son, partly due to the lack of food security, safety, and education in her life.

The family struggles with food insecurity and lacks basic necessities such as clean drinking water, adequate sleeping space, and warm clothing. The girls often have to go into the jungle to gather food, which keeps them out of school.

Due to a lack of sex education and limited quality education, the mother believes girls are seen as a burden. Once they reach their teenage years, they are married off to other families. In this situation, there’s a strong cultural preference for having a boy, who is believed to be more valuable for supporting the family in old age.

Employment opportunities are scarce in the village, and the mother is overwhelmed with caring for her young children and managing household chores. The family’s conditions make it difficult for them to sustain themselves and provide for their children’s future.

ACCESS TO HEALTHCARE

Healthcare access in Oda is critically limited. The nearest hospital is a three-hour walk followed by a two-hour drive, with no local transportation options such as cars or ambulances. Villagers often have to hitchhike or make the journey on foot. The high poverty rates make it difficult for families to afford medical appointments, procedures, and medicine. Moreover, the quality of healthcare available is compromised by geographic isolation.

To address this, we aim to improve healthcare access by covering the costs of doctor’s visits, dental care, medicine, and medical procedures for the children and families in the community.

Children in our Eduction Program

Our New Kitchen with more space, clean tiles, sinks and a filter machine.

Women Handloom Project for 12 Full-time women and 120 trainees every year.

Around our Oda village, the lower part of the village.

New Kitchen with New filter machine for our community. Clean Water Saves Lives.

Nutrition Program - providing healthy nutritious meals during our Education Program. Most children and members in remote villages in Nepal eat the same food everyday, in the morning and the evening.

Why is Pradiya working so hard to grow organic food?

Research shows that maintaining a healthy lifestyle heavily depends on what we put into our bodies- and we mean FOOD. In Oda village and many others, children, young mothers, and community members often lack enough nutritious food and a balanced diet.

Our meal program provides vegetables, fruits, and protein sources to support the growth and development of our children. Without a balanced diet, children cannot develop healthy minds and bodies. This is why Pradiya Foundation works hard every day to ensure no child goes HUNGRY.

Most people in these villages eat only two meals a day due to “food insecurity.” They survive on polished rice and lentils, lacking variety and nutrition. With no local employment, many men work in India for low wages. Imported food becomes very expensive by the time it reaches remote villages.

Women and family members gather wood, care for cattle, fetch water, and cut grass etc:, highlighting the need for local, sustainable food sources.

A healthy diet is essential for the overall development of children. JOIN the Pradiya Foundation in serving nutritious meals to our community, TAKE ACTION TODAY.

HEALTHY CHILDREN, HEALTHY NATION

-Prema Singh,

Health & Fitness Instructor at Pradiya

NUTRITION

Due to poverty and challenging conditions, obtaining nutritious food is difficult for the residents of Oda. We currently provide meals for children enrolled in our education program and distribute rations to 18 families in the community. Our organic farm grows nutritious vegetables, and we care for livestock that provide dairy and eggs. Continued support for Project Helping HAND will enable us to promote better nutrition and sustain our efforts to provide healthy food for the community.

DEVELOPMENT

Oda is a rural area lacking essential infrastructure such as paved roads, clean water, sanitary toilets, electricity and more. To address these needs, we urgently require a new water filtration system to prevent waterborne diseases, sanitary toilets to avoid contamination of water sources and a safe home for the children.

Your support for Project Helping HAND will help us improve these critical aspects of community life, fostering a healthier and more sustainable environment for the children and families of Oda.

The first ever tile- flushing & running water toilets in entire villages/villages.

PROGRESS ON LEVEL - 2

More living Space, with a medicine room in case of Emergencies.

GROWING ORGANIC FOOD USING SUSTAINABLE PERMACULTURE METHODS - More healthy fresh meals for our children and the community members.

Take a look at our beautiful organic garden… We’re currently growing over 46 varieties of vegetables, using ancient farming techniques and permaculture practices. We understand and research shows that colourful vegetables help with all round development for the children, something we are working on tirelessly everyday. We use NON-GMO organic seeds.

How can we expect children to learn in classrooms when their brain and body isn’t developing properly ?? Healthy Nutritious meals are a MUST for overall development !!

Organic farm grown vegetables for a healthy mind and a healthy body.

Where Your Funding Will Go?

1. Additional construction - $11,200

2. Nutritious Healthy Meals for Children - $8,000

3. Education Program - 6,900

TOTAL : $ 26,100

About the Pradiya Foundation

The Pradiya Foundation was born from a conviction to uplift marginalized people as they bring their own communities to life. We are an organization with the mission of empowering the people of India and Nepal to improve living conditions for people suffering from illness, poverty, discrimination and a lack of human rights.

Our organization seeks to provide people with tools to improve their lives in a sustainable way. Pradiya’s mission is inspired by the lived realities in India and Nepal– where education, employment opportunities, and healthcare are currently lacking significantly. The Pradiya Foundation vows to support people on their journey to create the changes they want to see in their own communities and within their own lives.

As an organization, we value human rights, health and nutrition, education, and empowerment. We also recognize that our goals cannot come at the cost of the environment around us, and we take our environmental impact into account with every decision we make. Construction can often have a huge impact on the environment, but we’ve worked to limit our impact by using natural materials and limiting our use of heavy machinery. We also have chosen to implement solar energy from the get-go so that we can have a green beginning and a green future.

Why Nepal?

Our team is predominantly based Nepal, United States and India, we believe that we have the opportunity– as well as the obligation– to make what difference we can in Nepal. Though the Pradiya Foundation’s founder, Oinak Singh, was born and raised in India, he has Nepali heritage. His parents fled during the Nepalese Civil War which lasted a decade, and once he was able to visit, he was appalled by what he saw. Many of the people he met lacked access to healthcare, basic hygiene, nutritious food, and clean water. Conditions were especially fraught in the mountains, where villages are difficult to access and provide aid to.

When our founder found out that his family-owned land in the area, he saw that he had a chance to put that land to use to uplift those who weren’t as lucky as he and his family. That opportunity, and our team’s drive to make a difference have blossomed into the work that we’re doing now.

-Kaita on behalf of the Pradiya Foundation.