From November 22nd to 25th, Hortense Landowski, project manager at the RAJA-Danièle Marcovici Foundation, took advantage of her stay in Nepal to visit the Resham Firiri association, partner of the Foundation since 2017.
In this village located in the South Plains of the country, the support of the Foundation to a hen and buffalo breeding cooperative managed by 20 women enabled the guarantee of their financial independence and the improvement of the living conditions of their family.
Since 2011, the Resham Firiri association has played a significant role in the development of the village of Chormara, thanks to sponsorship of children allowing the funding of their schooling and the financial and material support to better their infrastructures (schools, gynaecologist office, and clinic).
On arrival in the location, Hortense Landowski discovered the village of Chormara, accompanied by Dipak Pangeni (co-founder and President of Resham Firiri Nepal), Catherine Rastello (co-founder and President of Resham Firiri France), and Christian Chamot (Secretary of Resham Firiri France).
Discovery of Chormara
This visit was an occasion to go out and meet beneficiaries of the projects led by the association:
– The 133 children sponsored thanks to the association
– The mothers of these children, who meet monthly as a women self-help group (type of tontine) to exchange on the development of projects led for and by families in the community (e.g. buying goats for a family, supporting the creation of small shops etc.). The Resham Firiri team takes part in the meetings and guides women through the set up of these projects which foster their emancipation.
As time goes by, women gain confidence and begin public speaking. The self-help group has also become a space for women to share about the hardships they face (domestic abuse, financial difficulties…) and find solutions together.
– The 20 women from the hen and buffalo breeding cooperative (supported by the Foundation)
 Meeting with the women of the self-help group and the sponsored children |
 Dipak Pangeni (President of Resham Firiri Nepal) on the right and Kaushila (Accountant of the cooperative) on the left. |
On November 24th, the annual celebration of the association took place and allowed Hortense to exchange, in a friendly atmosphere, with the Nepalese team of the association, but also the children and the women accompanied by Resham Firiri (approx. 350 people). After a solidary march around the village to raise awareness on women and children’s rights as well as the protection of the environment, all the participants gathered around a great picnic.
March for women and children’s rights and for the protection of the environment.
The Foundation provides support to the cooperative, which has been training women from the village to good practices for breeding and resources management (water and fertiliser), since its creation in October 2018. Currently, 20 women are part of this cooperative: 10 women are developing hen farms and 10 women are developing buffalo farms, thanks to the support of Resham Firiri for the initial investment (purchase of the livestock, constructions of henhouses, fertiliser).
Hortense visited several women who are now autonomous in the management of their activity: farming and sale of their production (500 rupees or 4€ for the sale of one hen, and 70 rupees or 0.56€ per litre of milk). Thanks to the income generated through this activity, women have started reimbursing part of the initial investment made by Resham Firiri, in order to be able to invest in the creation of new livestock farming facilities, allowing other women to join the project.
Meeting with a hen farmer
The association plans to welcome 20 more women in the cooperative within the next 2 years. By then, the cooperative will be completely autonomous financially. The project fosters the professional integration and the financial independence of women in the village of Chormara. This visit allowed Hortense to note the efficiency of the cooperative as well as the positive future perspectives offered to the inhabitants of the village by the association.
This project is sponsored by Ronan Delanoë, RAJA collaborator, as part of the RAJApeople program – which offers RAJA France collaborators different levels of implication to support actions for women’s emancipation, amongst which the sponsoring of projects. In 2005, during a trip to Nepal, Ronan got acquainted with Dipak Pangeni, President of Resham Firiri Nepal, with whom he had a chance to discuss the living conditions of Nepalese women. In 2016, after keeping in touch with them, Ronan brought their project up for the Foundation to support it and for him to become its sponsor.
