How do you look at the overall program of WVIN?

I am very proud to say that we are able to reach the needy poor and marginalized population living in remote rural parts of Nepal. Our program supported to improve livelihood of the people and prevented hundreds of child marriage.

Our work includes boosting literacy after disasters, sustainable organic farming, empowering children with life skills, promoting disaster risk reduction, education, including renewing learning interest, children friendly program and ending child marriage.

How do you start your program?

First we identify the needs of the community. Since we have been focusing on children, we give priority to the children related programs. We see the community needs and the government priority including periodic plan and SDG. We also look at our donors' priority and WVIN's capability. So intersection of all these lenses is the basis for us to decide which programs we are looking for support and to implement. About seventy percent of the programs are long term programs with 10-12 years mostly in the areas like education, health and child protection, disaster reeducation, Gender Equality and Social Inclusion. Twenty to thirty percent of funding is coming from our bilateral donors’ special funding from other partners.

How do you see the results in health sector?

We are very proud of the results in health programs. We have been implementing maternal and child health programs. We have been working with the mother groups and community health groups to address the issues of underweight children in the communities. After the implementation of the program, what we find is the reeducation of underweight children up to seventy percent. Our project interventions have greatly helped make the differences. In our program, parents produce nutrients from locally available foods to end malnutrition. After completion of 10 sessions of our programs, we have seen the increase of child weight up to 1 kg.

How do you view education program?

In our education program, we have achieved two milestones. Under our reading program, we supported to increase the availability of book supply. In Lamjug, local governments have been allocating budget to reading camps. This is a program to increase the reading of the children. Two local governments have increased budget for reading camps. To provide opportunity for children, in our literacy program, we support teachers in helping them create learning environment, making learning exciting and fun. Through this program we help kids to improve comprehensive reading. One of our programs is Kitab. Funded by The World Bank, we connected book publisher in Nepal to different education institutions and schools to create a platform. The book publisher presented the list of books and schools ordered the book as per their need. We have been working with 900 schools in Provinces 1 and 2. We have supplied the books to over 60000 kids. We also work with community based child protection system comprising representatives of teachers, parents and and others. We produce a lot of children to work for preventing child marriage. They also help to report child abuse cases. We are reaching more than 10,000 people through radio program.

What is the state of ending the child marriage campaign?

We have seen improved awareness against child marriage and increased engagement at the community level. We have also achieved major progress through the implementation of Rupantaran. We have been able to generate awareness among the young people against child marriage. Through this we are able to empower girl and children at Palika level. In economic development, we have been working with more than 50000 males and females through our saving and producers groups. We have been supporting women to establish the group. We also provide literacy training to the groups, building the capacity of women to write and count profit. Some of the literacy program helped empower women. We have also supported women in off farm activities. We have mechanisms to measure the program. We regularly monitor the programs monthly, quarterly, six monthly and annually. We have outcome monitoring and donor reporting.

We have been covering many Palikas and provinces. Our priority now is province 2, 6 and 7. Our presence is also in province 3 and 4. We are in 13 districts and 43 districts. Our aim is to go to poorest people through the government data. We are now allocating more resources to province 2 and seven. We still have a program in 1,3 and 6 with long term target.

Which areas do you focus on through advocacy or livelihood?

We are integrating both. Our major components of the program are transformation and disaster management. In the past NGOs had a traditional way of working in rural parts of the country. Now, we have been working with new approach connecting our programs with the government agencies and local levels. We want to see community level organizations and local levels take ownership. We look at the sustainability issue. We have been supporting building the capacity of community.

How do you see the achievements?

World Vision International Nepal (WVIN), with its partners, has achieved some important progress in the areas of health, education, protection, agriculture and economic development, youth economic development, disaster risk management. Our programs have mainstreamed gender equality and social inclusion.

In what areas can we see the changes?

Our programs have improved education, health and economic status of marginalized children and communities. We have also completed numbers of education and health infrastructure to support children’s learning and access to good health. By implementing the program, we have improved awareness and positive changes in behavior towards protection of children. We have also supported the establishment of youth and child clubs to drive these changes in communities.

How do you view the program of last year?

In fiscal year 2019, we reached more than 562,000 women, men, girls ad boys with long-term development programs across 12 districts in seven provinces across Nepal. We worked in partnership with NGOs; federal, provincial and local governments; civil society; the private sector; donors; academia; and inter-faith networks.

How does your organization work?

Our organization has been working with 40 local partner NGOs, federal, provincial and local level governments, civil society, private sectors, donors, academic and interfaith networks. As a child focused organization, World Vision wants to contribute more to support children’s well being in Nepal. We are committed to address remaining development gaps by aligning our works with Nepal government's social and economic development priorities and sustainable development goals.

How do you see End Child Marriage Campaign?

This is aligned with the Government of Nepal’s social and economic development priorities and World Vision International (Global) Strategy. Our five- year campaign to end child marriage, which was launched in 2017 has been very successful. One of our aims is to contribute to reduce child marriage through the formulation of national and local policies and with the strengthening of community and legal systems.

What activities has WVIN been launching?

We have been launching awareness raising; media mobilization in collaboration with child protection committees; national, provincial and local consultations with concerned stakeholders. Since the launch of our campaign, a number of child marriages have been prevented with these efforts.

There are some controversies on earthquake programs launched by WVIN. How do you view your three years’ earthquake response program?

WVIN is proud to have been a part of efforts to reach out to some of the worst-hit populations through interventions in livelihoods, education, child protection, WASH and shelter/infrastructure, to benefit more than half a million population of hardest hit districts. One of important parts of our work was a strong accountability tools, which used a variety of mechanisms to ensure that we listened to communities and incorporated their concerns and feedback into our programming and implementation. Communities and local government representatives attest to the achievements of our response teams. We have achieved our response goal to meet the emergency needs, strengthen the resilience and self-recovery, and restore a sense of safety for earthquake affected children and their communities.