Why Women, Why Girls? Why Not! International Women’s Day In Action!

Every worldview begins with a story, and mine is no different. It is the product of a lifetime of accumulated lessons, but sometimes certain junctures stand out. The biggest turning point for me was in 1984 when my husband Ric, and I, fresh from graduating with degrees in Environmental Science from Huxley College, decided to spend the next 8 months circumnavigating the globe. We were full of questions about parts of the world we had never engaged with and excited to talk to environmentalists in China, Nepal, Malaysia and New Zealand. Little did we know that this trip would change the course of our lives by sparking a life-long adventure in partnering with women and girls in Nepal to co-create a world where women have access to controlling their own money, making their own decisions and having a respected voice in all discussions.

In 1984, with no business experience, but armed with the desire to engage in a dream of economically empowering women handcraft producers in Nepal (while at the same time educating Westerners about the impact of our consumption),  we launched Ganesh Himal Trading (GHT), a Fair Trade import business. No business professor we talked to believed we could run a business based on trust and relationship across two different cultures with vast economic disparities and no experience. But the women and men we wanted to engage with in Nepal thought differently, and together we replied “Who says we can’t do it this way?” At the
 

Laxmi Maharjan receiving award for her leadership of women weavers in Kirtipur, Nepal from Association of Craft Producers Executive Director Meera Bhatterai

same time asking, “What would it look like to have women hold money in their hands, have the tools and respect to envision and create their future, and have a voice at the table?” Fast forward to 2020 and we are still here, working with many of the same women, watching them use the money they now control, having educated their daughters and their communities, and having become formidable players in shaping their futures. There is still a long way to go, but they are changing their world. 

But of course there’s always more to the story! As we saw women become economically empowered, we realized many other non-economic barriers, such as education and cultural taboos, still stood in the way of them thriving. To address those issues we talked with women in Nepal and we realized we needed an additional approach. In 2014, a team of us created the non-profit, Conscious Connections Foundation (CCF). The goal of CCF is to support women and girls in Nepal, through education, skills development and healthcare so they can become key participants in creating a healthy, inclusive society where women and girls thrive. 

Heema Maharjan, first recipient of CCF’s Girls College Scholarship and mother celebrating the changes to her future life due to having access to education

Why focus on women and girls?

Why focus on women and girls? We focus on women and girls through our business and through the Conscious Connections Foundation because in our 35 years of experience in Nepal, we have watched the excitement in women’s eyes and the immensity of their impact as they understand their worth and intelligence. We have seen the sheer exuberance in girls as the doors to education and learning are opened for them and watched as they go on to change the trajectory of their families and their communities. We have seen the impact that education and steady work has on giving women options and choice; on marriage, family size, the health of their children, and controlling their finances. 

We also focus on women and girls because we, as women, have so much wisdom to share and that wisdom is so needed at this time.  As the natural world reacts to our unsustainable systems, people, animals, and ecosystems are displaced and destroyed and our existence on this planet is in peril.  Everyone’s insight and perspective is needed now to create the new systems that will allow us to partner with, rather than dominate nature and each other. As Katherine Wilkensen states in her 2018 TED talk , “Women are vital voices and agents for change on this planet, and yet we’re too often missing or barred from the proverbial table.” 

Ganesh Himal Trading and CCF believe we must vigorously act to provide women and girls access to the tools they need to participate to their fullest potential so that all of us can engage in and create  the next systems we all need to thrive.  

How does that happen? 

How does that happen? Take the example of our Ganesh Himal and CCF partner, Kesang Yudron. We’ve known Kesang since she was born. Her parents,  Namgyal and Pemala (both Tibetan refugees), started working with and providing products to Ganesh Himal Trading in 1985. Namgyal and Pemala had three daughters, and as refugees, understood the value of education. With stable earnings from their fair trade work, they invested in the education of their daughters, and all completed their undergraduate degrees. Their daughters also watched and learned as their mom and dad reached out to others, mainly less fortunate women, and provided them with steady work, training, and opportunity. In 2009, after finishing her degree in the U.S., Kesang returned to Nepal and, inspired by her parents, started her own Fair Trade business providing meaningful employment to over 50 women throughout Nepal. Ganesh Himal Trading has partnered with Kesang’s business since its inception and together we have helped producers gain economic stability and independence through consistent orders, fair wages, school scholarships for educating their children, and access to very low interest micro-loans through a co-funded worker development fund.

Kesang, her mother, Pemala, and sister, Chimme

Kesang’s interests, however, like GHT and CCF, didn’t stop with just economic empowerment. She has a keen interest in helping to remove other unseen barriers to girls and women in Nepal and has been an instrumental partner in the growth and development of CCF’s Menstrual Hygiene training program. In this program, CCF uses Nepali health workers to educate women and communities about menstruation, seeking to engage everyone in the discussion to dissolve long-held myths and taboos and help remove the stigma. CCF also provides girls and women with reusable menstrual pads so that girls and women can lead normal and healthy lives with quality, non-polluting menstrual aids. Kesang has organized leadership workshops for CCF in Menstrual Hygiene Management, set up a tailoring workshop employing a low income women to sew reusable menstrual pad kits, and with CCF support she is currently developing a Menstrual Hygiene educational manual geared toward educating women, girls and communities in remote areas where women have little or no education.

This one young woman has  taken advantage of the opportunities of education, partnership, and the support of her family and community to change the world and our perceptions of how things can and should be done. She is providing grassroots avenues for women to thrive and engage.

Nilam and Kesang discussing the production of CCF reusable cotton menstrual kits

Another great example is the story of Pema Tamang and her husband Yogendra. We met them in their remote village of Sertung as we were surveying the damage after the 2015 earthquake.  When we asked what they needed to rebuild, they responded that they needed work, and so together we looked at their skills, the difficulties of having to carry supplies into their village and what kind of products Ganesh Himal might be able to sell. We settled on using recycled silk saris (very light to carry for two days walk) and their wrapping skills to make trivets, bowls and vases. thirteen women have been making products for Ganesh Himal Trading now since 2016, and to date, over $35,000 has returned directly to the village. Recently, when evaluating this partnership, Yogendra said:

“When Toni Maya and Niri Maya Tamang work with Ganesh Himal Trading, they get big opportunities to earn money and they are very happy with this work. They use this money for their children’s school fees, health check-ups and medicines. They are very happy. They say a big thanks to Ganesh Himal. They told me, please keep continuing to give us this work. Thank you.”

Maya Tamang with her recycled sari basket creations

Women and children in this remote area of Nepal are getting opportunity, financial independence, access to education, and medicine through this work. But again, there is more to this story. Pema Tamang is a Certified Medical Assistant and has worked in health care in the Sertung area for many years. She approached Ganesh Himal and CCF because she believes strongly in girls’ education and women’s empowerment and she wanted to find out if we could help her get menstrual education and supplies into her remote area. The lack of understanding of women’s bodies and health, she felt, was a barrier to their advancement and the lack of menstrual supplies often kept girls out of school. 

CCF, Kesang, Pema and Yogendra worked out a plan. In October of 2018 after attending a CCF sponsored leadership training in Menstrual Hygiene Education, Pema and Yogendra organized CCF’s first remote village Menstrual Hygiene workshops. Pema did the instruction and her husband, Yogendra, and her sister (a nurse midwife), helped as assistants. To date, they have provided educational day-long training to over 500 women and girls in the remote villages of Sertung, Lapa, Borang, Hindung and Neber, helping women learn more about their bodies, menstruation and the myths and taboos surrounding it. Through CCF, Pema has also been able to distribute over 500 reusable menstrual pad kits, made in Kesang’s workshop, to the women and girls attending these workshops. The programs have been so well received that women and men in this area have requested further, more in-depth training on women’s health so that they can gain greater understanding of women's bodies and reproductive health. 

Pema Tamang educates women in Sertung on menstrual hygiene and women’s health

We have seen many “Kesangs and Pemas” blossom in Nepal through the years, and we realize that their stories should be every young woman’s story. Every woman should be given the tools and support necessary to participate with their greatest voice, without exception, at this level equally, if they desire. Their impact, in their communities is invaluable.

Can we imagine together a world where all girls and women are given this chance and support? Where women in their family are respected, heard and partnered with? Where women’s work and perspective become seen and is valued and understood as complementary to the work of the men we work alongside? A world where our voices and perspective in whatever arena can be lauded for evolving new systems and new ways engaging? 

I say, “Yes we can”. This world is possible and being created at so many levels, by so many people and organizations as we speak. The Kesangs and Pemas of the world, when given the chance, are eager for the challenge. Fair Trade businesses like Ganesh Himal Trading and non-profits like Conscious Connections Foundation are just two examples of organizations that are working to bring women’s voices to the forefront. Look around you and you will see many more. The seeds of systemic change aimed at creating equality for women are being sown and nurtured.

What Now?

Where we are now reflects good and important work, and all who have participated in laying this path deserve great gratitude and acknowledgement, but women still do not have equal voice and we need to do more and we need to put laser focus on it. We need to dream even bigger because without women’s voices and women’s insights, our species survival is in greater danger. Education is key, as is access to quality voluntary reproductive health care and family planning. According to Katherine Wilkensen, one of the co-authors of Project Drawdown, “130 million 6-17 year old girls are still denied their basic right to education”. That is a staggering number when, as she states,  access to education means: 

“better health for women and their children, better financial security, greater agency at home and in society… more capacity to navigate a climate changing world… options, adaptability and strength. It can also mean lower emissions… and more years of education, [means women will] typically choose to marry later and to have fewer children.” 

Education means women have more voice and more options.  Coupled with “access to high-quality voluntary reproductive health care that allows women to have children by choice rather than chance,” women having access to these two services could  actually result in “one billion fewer people inhabiting the earth…avoiding 120 billion tons of emissions” by mid-century.  Combining educating girls and family planning makes “gender equity the top solution to restore a climate fit for life,  more than on- and offshore wind power combined.”  Yet, as Katherine also states:

“ it is estimated that just .2% of philanthropic giving goes specifically to women and the environment. 110 million dollars globally. This dynamic is unjust and is setting us up for failure.”

What are we waiting for? The time is now.

It is time to come together even more urgently than before and raise our collective voices in support of shifting our systems to those that engage all of humanity so that as a united community we can restore balance to the earth and create systems of inclusion and partnership that help benefit all. Women deserve it, men deserve it and the planet deserves it. 

On this International Women’s Day, Sunday, March 8, 2020, we must ask: Why Women, Why Girls? Why Not! The wheels are already in motion for change. Let’s get on the bus. We must shout out to the world, “when women and girls thrive, the world is a better place.” This is a call to action, a call to evolve and a call to challenge and change the systems that keep women and girls from thriving. To start, we can fund programs like CCF’s Girl child education campaign and support the full funding of access to quality education for every girl. We can call for access and funding of quality voluntary reproductive health care and education for all women such as CCF’s Menstrual Education Program. We can support those who provide economic equality and advancement for all women, and most importantly we must seek out and loudly support those organizations, institutions, governments, and businesses that seek to create systems of equality & justice for all women. Our voice is strongest when we act together. The collective is our source of power and courage and we call for you to join us, on this International Women’s Day, as we dream in this new reality, of women as co-partners on this planet.

Three-day Menstrual Hygiene Leadership Training at the Association for Craft Producers Nepal
(photo credit Kesang Yudron)

Please donate to CCF today to help us carry out our mission of empowering girls and women through education for a more vital world.

What CCF does and how it does it

CCF sponsored Menstrual Leadership Training in Kathmandu

By Kimberly A. Maynard, Ph.D.
– CCF Board Member

I have personally worked with, for, and beside hundreds of international aid organizations in many countries. I have professionally examined the intention and value and, ultimately, the impact of international aid work. What does truly caring about our fellow humans around the world and “doing good” look like in an organization? We are in an era of extreme resource imbalance within a globalized economy. Through the media, we are privy to the lives of others in the far reaches of the world 24/7. It tears our hearts when we witness an earthquake destroy a whole village or a young girl destined to hard labor deep in the hands of poverty. We are the privileged, the few, the top end of the ladder yet what do we do to help? How do we express our humanity effectively?

How Do We Do Good Well?

After a career in the field and decades examining this personally, I have boiled it down simply to exemplifying good ethics. In the end, we are humans who want to favorably touch and be touched by other humans. This entails two things for me organizationally: 1) upholding an excellent partnership relationship with those we work with and 2) making an effort to think long-term and to act short-term in the best interest of the community and country.

Last year while trekking to each of CCF’s projects, I kept this in mind. Sitting in a circle in front of the Baseri Health Clinic along with the clinic’s oversight committee and staff, I asked myself this same question: what does “doing good” look like. The clinic was in need of repair. Children from the school next door had taken to throwing rocks at it, which chipped the siding. Some of the rooms flooded during the monsoons due to poor run off and an inadequate foundation. What actions could CCF take that would support the long-term ability of the community to have and uphold a quality clinic and not simply do a quick fix? That day in the circle, we agreed on a plan. CCF engaged a local contractor who employed Baseri young men to upgrade some structural components of the clinic. The contractor, also a committee member, took responsibility to guarantee the work would be maintained in years to come. After our meeting, the schoolmaster from next door walked over to me and thanked CCF for helping ensure that the community had such a viable health service. He said he would personally ensure that children learned to appreciate the value of the clinic and that they would no longer throw rocks.

CCF Takes A Deeper Look At What It Does

That trip prompted some navel gazing among CCF’s Board members. Clearly, CCF is greatly appreciated among the Nepalis with whom we engage and whose lives we touch. How do we articulate how that works? How can our ethics and methods be made more visible and consistent in our work? How can we ensure our integrity, transparency, and underlying values are inherent in everything we do? CCF has held strong values since its inception, such as trusting and working closely with specific Nepali relationships to guide its grant-making. However, up until now, these had been more intuitive than verbalized.

The Board formed a committee to look deep into this question. We held a series of introspective discussions unpacking what we stood for and how we operate. This invisible substructure developed into clear, discernible philosophies and standards documented in What CCF Does and How and agreed to by the entire Board. It states our underpinning beliefs, what kinds of projects we fund and why, and our guiding principles and is the foundation of all our operations. In it, is a set of seven criteria against which we measure each proposal in deciding what to fund in upholding this platform.

For example, our internal discussions pointed directly to our belief that when women and girls thrive, the world is better off. Yes, there are many deserving issues, and CCF has chosen to center its work on women and girls. For decades, I’ve had a sticker next to my desk that reads, “For every year beyond fourth grade that girls go to school, family size drops 20%, child deaths drop 10%, and wages rise 20%; yet international aid dedicated to education is declining.” Paul Hawken’s Project Drawdown uses big data to list the 100 most important, already existing solutions to reversing global warming. It measures how much CO2 is either not emitted or is captured by each solution. Educating girls is number six, family planning is number seven, and the two combined are number one. CCF’s scholarships and menstrual hygiene training are right in there.

I learned early on that giving money and food to the women resulted in the whole family surviving better. When girls get a leg up, their entire lives are transformed, they have more choices, and they give back to their societies. CCF has seen this transformation with Nepali women and girls since its inception. So, we made explicit that our work is to support women and girls.

The Process Is As Important As The Product

Yet, my experience has underscored it is not just what an international aid organization does does but how it does it. The process itself can often become the majority of the benefit. CCF has always invested in trusted Nepalis to guide our actions. Making this explicit through our guidelines grounds us in these precious relationships. This stems from the fact that every organization has to decide how directive it will be. Will it use its education and experience to proffer activities to a community or will it ask the community—sometimes without much subject matter experience—to decide what to do?

CCF has decided to walk beside and partner with Nepali communities, working collaboratively on issues of interest related to girls and women. In this, Nepalis collectively benefit from CCF’s involvement (not least of which is financing), while we in the West learn from working closely with the unique Nepali cultures and approaches to their circumstances. That said, CCF remains open to the understanding that there will be situations when it walks ahead and directs change. Similarly, there will be situations when our Nepali partners have more insight and should rightfully lead. We see this two-way, accommodating modality deepening and strengthening our relationships.

Around the World Benefits

Another significant component of CCF’s internal workings that emerged during our discussions was the value of our North American partners. We are immensely grateful for the financial generosity that continuously delights and strengthens us. Indeed, without our bighearted donors, we could not do what we do. And yet the relationship goes far beyond the funding.

Despite most of the world now having full time access to information, our understandings of and exposure to other cultures is always limited. CCF plays a unique role in bridging some of this gap personally. Recognizing this, we renewed our commitment to bring glimpses of the rich Nepali life to our donors and to the internet public through our website, newsletters, blogs, fundraising, and personal interactions with other Americans. We see this cross-cultural sharing plays a crucial role in linking communities and individuals across the planet and contributing to a broader sense of our global humanity.

To Hell With Good Intentions

As we all have witnessed, the challenge is not in holding good intentions as we set out to “do good.” The pages of history and the streets of villages around the world are literally littered with examples of disastrous projects of well-intentioned aid organizations. I can personally attest to many “unintended consequences” of poorly designed, ill-thought out, and failed programs.

Unfortunately, the international system rarely holds international organizations accountable for such projects. It is the community, the local population who must live with the debacle. Some of this is the result simply of poor planning and inexperience, exaggerated expectations, funding shortfalls and other such natural naiveté. Much of it, however, can be avoided by knowing the context in detail and thinking longer-term. By imagining both the spinoff benefits and potential problems that might arise from both the project and the process used, one can develop a more informative perspective.

CCF has adopted this long-term thinking in our foundational platform. For each proposal, we ask ourselves whether the project will likely have been a good idea a generation (20 years) hence. Without the benefit of hindsight, we do our best to imagine the enduring positive and negative implications of our actions. In the Baseri example above, in the short-term, the clinic was repaired before the monsoons. By using a local contractor (instead of one from Kathmandu) who then hired community laborers using largely local materials, money went back into the area’s economy, local workers developed some capacity in this form of building repair, and the skills necessary for maintaining the clinic are now resident in the community. A generation from now, these capabilities will hopefully remain.

Living Our Values

During this reflective process, we asked ourselves, “Change is happening all the time; what part of that change do we want to be?” While articulating our values and methodology doesn’t fundamentally change what CCF does or how we do it, it does elevate our work to a higher level. We are now visibly more accountable to ourselves, as we have an agreement against which to measure our actions. We are also more accountable to our Nepali partners, as our transparency is a commitment to right relationship. Lastly, we are more accountable to the public and to our donors who can track how we manifest our principles in our activities. By being explicit about our actions and values and putting our integrity on the line, we hope to attract North Americans intrigued by our work as well as Nepali partners and other opportunities that align with our approach.

Like many others, my years in the field have developed an attentive eye towards international aid. Our responsibility to our fellow humans obliges us to ensure our good intentions equate to positive long-term impact to the best of our ability. Dependency, colonialism, entitlement, and cultural bias are just some of the challenges we face with our generosity and true interest in helping others. It is with that sensitivity that I am engaged in and so appreciate CCF’s concerted self-reflection. While we never know the full impact of our efforts, with our ongoing partnerships with Nepali colleagues, we hope to cultivate a better, more loving world for all—one in which we each bring what we have to the table and engage deeply in each other’s lives such that we truly are contributing to a more beautiful world.

This Giving Tuesday, CCF's Menstrual Health Program Needs Your Support

How US policies, and Trump, are affecting women’s reproductive health care in Nepal.

We at CCF are especially proud of our work around menstrual health and education. For many in the West, menstruation is a non-issue. In Nepal, it is often a huge barrier for women and girls. Despite being a natural part of a woman’s life, menstruation in Nepal is often shrouded in secrecy with many cultural taboos and little information provided. Environmental disposal, cost, facilities for women and girls as well as misinformation around health and reproductive issues also make it difficult.

Girls often stay home from school during their period because of religious beliefs or lack of proper supplies, and as a result, they fall behind their male counterparts. Through CCF’s Menstrual Hygiene Program (MHP), we work to raise awareness and dissolve long held myths so that girls and women can lead normal and healthy lives free of restriction. To date, CCF has distributed 869 reusable kits throughout Nepal with incredible response. Our menstrual health training leaders report being flooded with questions, regarding family planning, prolapsed uteruses and general female anatomy—especially in hard to reach rural areas. MHP is one more way in which we are empowering Nepali women and girls to fully participate in their education, family life and society.

Despite the need for education and access to basic healthcare by women and girls in rural areas, the Trump administration has recently added additional restrictions around funding of foreign NGOs, making our menstrual health education work even more timely and critical.

Since 1984, when President Ronald Reagan first put in place the Global Gag Rule (originally called the Mexico City Policy), it has banned US funding of foreign NGOs that provide abortion counseling or referrals. Since its inception, every Democratic US President has rescinded the rule while every Republican US President has reinstated it. President Trump has expanded the policy to say that foreign NGOs that receive US aid can no longer use their own (non-US) funding to mention abortion. Because healthcare is limited in many parts of Nepal (it is estimated that in 2017, there were 7 doctors, nurses or other health care providers per 10,000 Nepalis, and most of them are based in urban settings), the situation is even more dire as rural clinics close due to funding loss and incomplete information. In many countries affected by the US government’s Gag Rule, abortion rates increase as much as 40% due to the tandem loss of information and access to birth control, according to The Lancet Global Health.

In a country like Nepal, where much of the funding has come from the US (USAID), the impacts are huge. This situation greatly increases the importance of our work, funding the remote Baseri Clinic as well as funding rural health care workers who travel to very distant remote villages to provide basic information about women’s reproductive systems. We believe that through discussion and sharing of information (including the risk of attempting abortions at home), that women will be empowered to make the decision best fit for them and their families. Access to a full range of healthcare is a human right, including counseling, allowing women control over their reproductive health.

This Giving Tuesday (December 3), CCF will be raising funds to continue education stipends and menstrual hygiene trainings. We believe that knowledge is power and knowledge about the female body, menstruation and family planning play a key role in ensuring women have equal opportunity in life. “Contraception changes lives. It allows women to take control of their futures—and in doing so, it drives economic and social development.” (- Marie Stopes International)

Join us this Giving Tuesday via Facebook or our website when your donations will go twice as far thanks to a generous supporter willing to match up to $2,000 in donations. Together we can ensure that no woman or girl is left in the dark about her body or her options. Together we can change the world, one empowered woman at a time.

Learn More:

Buzzfeed Article

Sierra Club Article

CCF empowers girls to take charge of their futures & celebrates International Day of the Girl! Check out this story!

Today is significant for Conscious Connections Foundation (CCF) because it celebrates the work we do every day in Nepal! Our mission is to help girls reach their full potential and we know first-hand, the impacts of educating and empowering women.

CCF invests in girls and women through education, healthcare, skills development and training.

Thing is, we discovered a woman’s period can provide a big barrier to getting these resources to them.

To kick this obstacle aside, CCF funds a Menstrual Health Hygiene program that has been growing and gaining great interest in several parts of Nepal. We provide menstrual health training workshops and reusable menstruation kits to our participants—and CCF doesn’t just work in urban and easy-to-access areas.

Carrying 400 reusable menstrual pad kits up the trail toward Sertung, Nepal.

In fact, our Nepali partners take our trainings to some of the most difficult and remote areas of Nepal.

This is where Menstrual Hygiene education and reusable kits are needed the most.

Watch over the next few weeks as CCF’s trainings come alive in the villages of Hindung and Neber in northern Dhading district…

• Many days walk from the nearest road

• Near the border of Tibet

• In the shadow of the 24,000 ft peak of Ganesh Himal

We look forward to bringing you some great stories from this experience. Stay tuned!

In honor of International Day of the Girl Child help our work continue on.
Your donations make this happen.

Photos
Top Left: Four women and one gentleman came down from Sertung to pick up and carry the kits for CCF.

Top Right: Pema Tamang, Certified Medical Assistant and Menstrual Hygiene Trainer with women from Sertung carrying CCF reusable kits into Hindung.

CCF Launches New Website!

When Conscious Connections Foundation was founded, we had no idea that it would end up here. We started small, asking for five dollars a month to help girls go to school. Today, we're still working with those same girls and many more, in both Kathmandu and beyond. The launch of this new website is representation of how far we have come as a community!

In early 2015, CCF board members, Austin Zimmerman and Cameron Conner, created the non-profit’s first website. It required learning the tools of website design with zero experience and distilling over 35 years of history into easily digestible snippets of information. With the invaluable help of Sarah Calvin, the website designer at Ganesh Himal Trading, we struggled through and established a platform that told our story to those patient enough to navigate our less-than-user-friendly layout and dig through thick, though heartfelt, paragraphs of memory.

Now, thanks in very large part to rockstar CCF board member, Colleen Cahill, we are proud to release the CCF Website, version 2.0! Our hope is that this space will give those who are newcomers to our organization a better understanding of who we are, the work we do, and most importantly, WHY we do it. With this new site, we hope to extend another avenue for initiating and strengthening our Conscious Connections.

As always, thank you so much for the love, kindness, generosity you have shown us over the years.

The Power of 5 at work: Meet Reshma!

Reshma Shrestha

An independent spirit, Reshma Shrestha, is a Power of 5 recipient and is in Grade 3 this year. Quiet by nature, she’s a mama’s girl and likes to dance with her best friend, Pemsang. Reshma is a hard worker in school and wants to be a doctor. Fun fact: her favorite fruit is watermelon.

Her mother says, “She is a blessing to us, most of the mothers complain about their children being engaged with gadgets. My daughter loves being on her own and studies. We have to ask her to go out to play. If she is not studying she will sit in her chair and manage the books and that’s all.”

Your generous donations are keeping Reshma and other kids like her in school and thriving. Thank you!

CCF's 2018 Annual Report released!

CCF’s 2018 Annual Report is finished and ready for reading! We’ve had fun putting this together and looking back on how much CCF and our partners in Nepal accomplished in 2018. Please read! We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed facilitating the work. Thank you for all of your support.

Sincerely,

The Board of Conscious Connections Foundation

Denise Attwood, Cameron Conner, Austin Zimmerman, Ric Conner, Martha Newell, Kim Maynard, Colleen Cahill and Saskia Peck

Development of a "mini-manual" on menstruation begins

Menstrual Health Training being conducted in Nepalgunj located in south central Nepal near the Indian border.

The CCF board of Directors recently approved funds for development of an educational supplement to increase understanding and retention of information shared during Menstrual Health leadership trainings.

The goal of the manual is to simplify the menstrual health information so that students from all levels of education and literacy can understand what is being shared and carry that information back to their families and communities. It will serve as a great reference tool for trainees to revisit.

The project will be guided and overseen by CCF’s partner, Kesang Yudron, who serves as our Menstrual Hygiene Management Project Manager.

To date, CCF’s Menstrual Health Program has been growing steadily, having conducted several trainings throughout rural Nepal. It has been exciting to see this program being met with great interest and enthusiasm. The training covers gender inequality, sexual reproduction, myths, taboos and religious beliefs surrounding menstruation and the local laws that support women’s rights.

The manuals should be ready in July. Look for updates coming soon!

CCF Celebrates Menstrual Hygiene Day 2019!

Thanks to our partners in Nepal who are educating girls and women and our donors who make it possible!

CCF’s most recent Menstrual Hygiene training was a 2-day intensive on May 5 – 6 in Sindupalchowk, Nepal. 39 rural women ages 16-65 received training in topics ranging from the menstrual cycle, to menstrual taboos and menopause.

Each participant received a reusable cotton menstrual pad kits made in Nepal by CCF sponsored Mahila pads and another 40 kits were distributed to the local high school!

2019 Joy Attwood College Scholarships have been awarded!

Saru Maharjan

This is so exciting to see these young women heading on to college in Nepal! 

Saru Maharjan is one of the 3 scholars chosen. Here is a bit of her story! 

My father is abroad and works as a migrant worker and my mother looks after our family here. My mother does not show but, she struggles to meet all our needs. She is strict but works very hard for us. I see my mother weaving. Despite liking how she weaves and my interests in it, I feel scared to try it as it might go wrong. 

At present I am studying Hotel Management and my favorite part is to study about the food chain and to know about different animals. My interest is in food and beverage. I love music and to sing. I am a big fan of movies.

From childhood I dreamt to be a play back singer for Nepali movies. But as a carrier plan I chose to study hotel management as my field of interest too.

Though my mother wants me to be safe and come home early, I sometime visit my friends and we love to roam around and have fun. I am so grateful to be selected as one of your recipients because this will directly aid towards financial stability for my studies.

Baseri Clinic Update: CCF Looks to the future

In February of 2019, CCF Board member Kim Maynard traveled to Nepal and visited with the local Deurali Community Committee that oversees the Baseri Clinic (CCF helped build and continues to support). She was able to meet the new staff and the community expressed how much they appreciated the clinic and how it helps the community. She was able to gather great input on where to focus CCF’s future efforts.

Baseri Clinic’s new staff, (at left) Parbati, new clinic nurse, (center) Sita, the admin assistant, and (at right) Anita the new mid-wife.

Deurali Community Committee meeting with Baseri Clinic in background.

The committee shared their hope to be involved in CCF’s Menstrual Hygiene Training programs since more information on women’s issues was vital to the community. They also welcomed the distribution of reusable menstrual pad kits since more than 80% of women in the area still use cloth rags.

The committee expressed a need for Gender Based Violence (GBV) trainings since domestic violence is a real problem in the rural areas.

CCF will engage this community and clinic staff in the upcoming years to bring training and awareness around these issues. We will also continue to maintain the clinic and staffing.

Another tragedy in Nepal. The need for Menstrual Education continues.

More unnecessary deaths in Nepal demonstrate, yet again, why Menstrual Hygiene Education is so important in Nepal and all over the world.

Women should not have to suffer and die for a natural, amazing process. CCF is so grateful to our partners in Nepal for their help in bringing Menstrual Education to communities there so that chaupadi will never need to occur, this is so tragic.

Read the story here: Banished from home for menstruating, mother and two children die in Nepali hut.

CCF’s Menstrual Hygiene Training Program is gaining momentum and growing. Please support giving access to this education for Nepal’s rural women, children and men.

CCF Sponsors 3-day Menstrual Hygiene Leadership Training

We are so proud of our partners in Nepal! With your support, CCF was able to sponsor a 3-day intensive Menstrual Hygiene Leadership training for 26 women—and one brave man—from rural and urban areas in Nepal. It was held in Kathmandu, Nepal. Our partner Kesang Yudron did an amazing job organizing this training including lining up the respected team at the Radha Paudel Foundation to do the training. Our partners at the Association for Craft Producers graciously donated their meeting space for the event and it was a huge success! Those trained are now excited to organize their own trainings in their villages and CCF will be there to support them.

This workshop covered issues on gender inequality, reproduction, menstrual hygiene, tools and management, taboos and myths related to menstruation in Nepal, religious beliefs and laws that support women's rights. The focus is to enable participants to increase their understanding of these issues so they can disseminate information to women and men in their local communities.

Already CCF has sponsored 3 shorter trainings that are set up for the girls involved in the Power of 5 and their mothers! Thanks to all in Nepal who did the hard work to get this done and to all who came from remote areas to participate! For those who wanted them CCF also provided a reusable menstrual pad kit for them to use and evaluate. We look forward to making them better and better and available with all the future trainings!

Fundraiser Benefits CCF's Power of 5 Program

A HUGE shout out to our friends at The Work of our Hands in Pella, Iowa! They held a fundraiser and raised enough money to keep 6 girls in Nepal in school for an entire year! Conscious Connections Foundation and the girls in Nepal say THANK YOU to everyone who made this happen!

Menstrual Hygiene Education in Nepal is spreading!

Education about women’s menstrual health is spreading! Newly trained Nepali leaders, Yogendra, Pema, with the help of program director, Kesang, are taking this very important information out to rural villages. These trainings cover issues including gender inequality, reproduction, menstrual hygiene, menstruation tools and management, taboos and myths related to menstruation in Nepal, as well as religious beliefs concerning menstruation and laws that support women’s rights. In the fall of 2018, they organized two training sessions and were overwhelmed by the interest. The training in Sertung, Nepal, on October 19 had 151 attendees and 90 reusable menstrual kits donated by CCF were distributed. The second training was held on October 22 in Borang, Nepal and drew more than 40 attendees! Conscious Connections Foundation is so grateful to our partners in Nepal for conducting these trainings! The report back is that everyone is very happy to have these trainings and all of this great information. We look forward to doing further trainings in this remote area in the fall of 2019! Thanks Yogendra, Pema and Kesang. None of this is possible without you!