The women’s empowerment team has visited & provided support for target women’s groups, in order to facilitate their income generating activities and encourage them to purchase shares and open a group account in their co-operative. After discussion the women are ready to purchase shares and open a group account.

Laura, a women’s empowerment volunteer, provided manual support by weeding the tomato field of a member of the Mukteshwor women’s group and the maize fields of the Laliguras women’s group.
                           

Training on vermin composting was conducted with Bhuveneshwori and Shytashakti women’s groups. The objectives were to learn to utilize waste materials around the house and field, keep the environment clean and produce quality manure at minimum cost.

The training included: methods and techniques for compost preparation, overturning of compost, ways to know the prepared compost, importance of vermin composting, methods of vermin composting preparation and things to remember while preparing vermin compost etc. The women are keen to learn and the practical sessions were performed successfully.

Regular follow up support has been provided for the Jitpurphedi women’s cooperative. Progress of the cooperative up to the end of June 2010 is shown below.

Total no of shares: 112, Group account: 16, Personal account: 21, Funds collected from shares: 56,000, Funds collected from entrance fee: 11,200, Group and personal account fund: 42,800, Total: 110,000, Loan amount: 50,000
No of people taken loan: 4

From this year VIN has planned to promote agro-forestry in the Jitpur community. Our women’s empowerment team has been coordinating with the government forestry office. We collected 900 seedlings and distributed them to women's groups members. Species of seedlings: Gauva, Populas, Citrus, Amala, Bais, Kalkiphool, Kaheyophool, Asharephool. The demand for fruit seedlings was high compared to amount so we plan to coordinate with the agriculture office for more fruit seedlings.

In June the following women's IGP groups have been visited: Mukteshwor, Adrasha, Shivapuri and Jagran. In Adrasha women’s group most of the women have grown tomatoes and bitter gourd. In Jagran some are growing off-season cauliflower, whereas in Mukteshwor some have cultivated off-season tomatoes. We now plan to do a small survey to find how much benefit/profit they get from off-seasonal vegetable farming.

VIN has been providing educational sponsorship for disadvantaged and marginalized children. Already this year VIN has provided support for 39 needy children from public school. (25 full & 14 partial sponsorships). It covers everything (annually) from the provision of uniform and stationary to school and medical fees, depending on the individual requirements (see table below).

VIN organized management training in Tarkeshwor Bhidhya Kunja School. The main objective was to provide basic management skills and empower the members of the newly formed children club. We focused on; role and responsibility of each member, meeting facilitation, minute writing, fund raising ideas, book keeping, resource mapping, communication skills etc.

Anchoring training was organized in Tinpiple, Jitpur, in which 13 students participated. VIN has been focusing on exploring and developing children’s innate talents and creativity, through the setting up of children's clubs. VIN has been encouraging them to organize different types of program and competition for children's capacity development. Children have to host the program so VIN has organized anchoring training to develop their spoken & program hosting skills.

A quiz contest was organized by UCC in Jitpur Higher secondary school, which all the Jitpur community schools attended. In the quiz contest Jitpur HSS won the first prize, North Star Boarding school second and Nagarjun SS third. Most of the VIN staff and volunteers attended and participation of all school was satisfactory. During the program VIN distributed the sponsorship materials for the selected children.

With full participation of community people a total of 20 bins were installed in different places. 8 bins in Dadagaun community, 8 bins in Schools of Jitpur, 1 in ECD pachmane, 1 in VDC, 1 in Healthpost and 1 in our host family have been successfully installed.

We conducted a school health program focusing on treating ill children and making them aware about health and hygiene. The health team went to Jitpur Phedi to conduct health camp at Khadwalkot primary school.
Objectives:
•    To check general health
•    To screen dental health and oral hygiene
•    De-worming the children
•    To teach hygiene and sanitation practices
VIN Doctor provided health check up service for the children between 12 and 2pm and then checked community people. All of them were examined and provided medicine free of cost. They were advised to follow preventative methods for particular diseases and continue to follow home remedies. Patients were also informed to visit the health post for follow up.

Findings: Altogether 32 patients were checked, 26 school children and 8 community people. Regarding the problems, 13 had abdominal pain, 5 had respiratory problem, 4 had headaches and others had mouth ulcers, dental caries, musculoskeletal problem etc.

Health check up at Health Post: In June, the doctor visited the health post for 12 days and 216 patients were treated.

 

In June VIN has supplied construction materials for an additional 6 toilets in Dandagaun and 4 have already been completed. VIN staff have been regularly following up on the toilet construction project and other activities.

In this month, we have completed many important activities successfully such as seedling distribution, scholarship distribution, bin installation etc. and we have conducted different types of training for women, children & youth.

Thank you for your interest at VIN and time spending for reading about our programs.