I knew that if I stayed in Nepal and did not get involved, I would not appreciate my stay. Currently, I’m involved with Save the Children (SC) on a food security initiative (FSI) which is a project in response to the rising food prices as a result of low production in the country. This project helps 5 districts in the mid western region of Nepal –Humla, Mugu, Rukum, Rolpa and Banke.
Before going into depth on what I’m doing, I’d like to explain what food security is all about.When I told my friend I was working on a food security project, he said: “Is food security like guarding food?” (lol) Sort of. There are several definitions. My professors from Land and Food Systems called it the “AAASS of food security”. Availability, Accessibility, Affordability, Safety and Sustainability. If all 5 of these aspects are present, the community/household/family is said to be food secure. I guess you could say food security is guarding the system so that is AAASS. Here’s the definition that SC uses:
What is “Household Food Security”?
Food security was defined years ago by the World Bank as “access by all people at all times to sufficient food for an active, healthy life.” In practical terms, this encompasses the physiological needs of individuals, the complementarities and trade-offs among food and other basic necessities (especially health care and education, but others as well), changes over time in terms of people’s livelihood strategies, the assets to which they have access, and uncertainty and risk (that is, vulnerability). Clearly, food security is about more than just how much people have to eat. Yet, having “enough” food to eat is the most important outcome of being food secure; while physiological requirements differ, people largely know whether they have “enough” or not.
(Source: Maxwell and Caldwell, 2008)
In order to address the food insecurity, the FSI project has several, well-planned out interventions in coordination with Integrated Nutrition Project. The INP project promotes the use of local foods and diversified food habits among the vulnerable groups and “improve the institutionalization of growth monitoring and nutrition counseling”. On the other hand, FSI is more large scale and focuses on the following.
1) Mobilize and coach vulnerable groups
a. 330 group formation in 36 VDC (Banke, Rukum, Rolpa, Humla, Mugu)
2) Increased access to safety nets
a. Facilitate awareness/access to government social safety nets
b. Provide cash for work on land, irrigation and agricultural infrastructure improvement projects
c. Village Food Bank/storage bins (training and bin support)
3) Increased access to land and water
a. Leasehold farming
b. Forest land allocation for NTFP farming
c. Micro-irrigation: Support for micro-irrigation facilities
d. Multiple-Use Systems-MUS (water supply with drip/sprinkler irrigation)
e. Small-scale water resource development: canal improvement and water harvesting
4) Improved agricultural and nutritional practices
a. Commercial vegetable and spice production (training, TA, seed, subsidy for plastic house, services link)
b. Greenhouse demonstration
c. Low external input kitchen garden training and coaching
d. School Youth Club kitchen gardens
e. Nutrition education
f. Beans, potato and cereal crop production package program (improved seed, IPM and crop rotation, soil and manure/fertilizer management, services link)
g. Improvement of Seed production, Multiplication and storage
5) Linkages to agricultural inputs, services and markets
a. Construction of collection center buildings/haat bazaar and other marketing infrastructure
b. Assist in establishing/strengthening agro-vets and MIT supply development
c. Forming, training and supporting Market Planning Committee
6) Vocational Education and Microenterprise Development
a. Vocational and life skills for employment training
b. Micro enterprise development
What’s my role?
The essential question I’m answering is “Are the interventions really helping the children? If so, how? I’m documenting the outcomes and writing a report by comparing change and benefits in the lives of the children (target households) in terms of education, health and nutritious food consumption through short surveys and focus group discussions. I’ll be conducting the studies in the VDCS of Banke and Rukum and I’m hoping this will help me get to know more about what Nepal is about.
I find this project very thorough and well-planned out and covers a lot of the loopholes that a lot of projects are unable to cover. For example, it doesn’t just provide nutrition education. I mean what’s the point of telling poor people to eat a balanced meal with fruits, eggs, meat, cereals when they’re trying to make the ends meet? Instead, the INP and FSI project informs the people how and why they should eat those foods. In other words, they give the people the skills and tools to implement the knowledge since a lot of projects are only about giving the knowledge.
Sorry, this post may have been a little dry for those who aren’t in this field but yes, this is basically my two months of internship J Can’t wait to share my experiences. Keep checking.
Cheers,
C
