Project Ujyalo Bhabisya

Development Nepal has been working since 2000 in the Sunsari district of Nepal, through Project Ujyalo Bhabisya ("A Brighter Future"). Sunsari contributes to a substantial part of the densely populated Terai, with the main occupation of its 600,000 population being subsistence farming. There are high levels of unemployment / underemployment, and although there are industrial market centres in the southern part of the district, most of the rural population are not involved in the industrial sector.

Project Ujyalo Bhabisya was initially focused on empowering socially and economically excluded youth through a holistic programme aimed at education, empowerment and income generation. The project has included components of literacy, business, numeracy and life skills training, and of saving and micro-credit schemes in support of income generation.

Amalgamating the lessons learnt from the three year long cycles of Project Ujyalo Bhabisya since 2000, Development Nepal, together with its partners, spent much of 2004 in planning, researching and preparing a five year project of complementary community projects. The new five year project is to run from 1st Jan 2005 to 31st Dec 2009, and focuses on improving skills and opportunities in each community.

A key innovation in this five year cycle is the development of a network of resource persons based in these communities and a resource centre that UCHEP will manage. The network of individuals will help realise the projects benefits during and after the project and the resource centre will support the fifteen individuals by providing ideas, information, contacts and assistance, while enabling UCHEP to monitor local issues.

Click to view a PDF version of the latest Project Ujyalo Bhabisya 2005-2009 proposal (PC users can right-click and select "Save as..." in order to download and view.)