Micro credits for disadvantaged Newar-women
Support for small business start-ups for livelihood

Start and Concept of the micro credit program

Due to the extremely high rate of unemployment in Nepal many women are forced to contribute to the livelihood of their families. In many families this is not just the consequence of the patriarchal structures in the Nepalese society which very often make western people being amazed about many inactive men to be seen everywhere. Instead many families this is the result of real need and working of the women is vital.

Everywhere in the villages the visitor of Nepal can observe that women are not shy to take over work in the lowest and most difficult and heavy jobs. If one had seen a petite woman just recently sitting at one of the looms of the manifold carpet manufactories, one can meet the same woman next time on a construction site, where she is doing unimaginably hard labor as the bearer of stones, sand and other construction materials.   Next time one may find her near the quarry where she is producing by hand in heavy labour gravel from bigger stones. During the harvest it's again the women who are carrying the rice in heavy sacks, who are drying the rice in the sun and preparing it.

Even after years of visiting Nepal for me it is hard to understand how these women, who normally are mothers as well, can arrange sending their children to school always clean and tidy.

Any help that you can get these women, is thus also an effective indirect help for the children!

I have accepted the proposal of Lalita Maharjan (see photo) to give a new chance for selected disadvantaged Newar-women by providing a microcredit for the establishing of a small business start-up for livelihood.

The microcredit-program immediately met the interest of the charity organization , partner of Nepalhilfe Kirtipur e.V. We commonly decided to support the small business start-ups for 10 women / groups of women as a first step of the program.

Concept of the  Microcredit-Program:

Provision of an interest-free loan of 30.000 NPR (approx. 260 Euro) for 5 years

Free of interest in case of yearly pay-back of 20% of the loan

Use of repayments to build up further loans

Controlling by Lalita Maharjan.

Because of the great success of the program from the very beginning "Nepalhilfe Kirtipur e.V." and "Hilfe zur Selbsthilfe Walldorf e.V." have decided already in 2016 to extend the program for 10 more micro credits.

2016 - 2017:

Examples for the generated "small business start ups"

Without delay the women have started their work immediately after they had received the cash credit.

Snack-Shop with home stay

Tea-Shop

Grocery store

Eggs and poultry

vegetable shop

Spice and grocery store

vegetable shop

Cotton shop

vegetable shop

Tea-Shop and snacks

beer brewing

Beauty parlour

cosmetic-Shop

A selfless business was started by Hari Devi Maharjan. She uses the credit to support the very old single people of the place and give them meaningful employment. Most of the over 80s, mostly women, gather in a temple building almost every day to sing, dance, to run gymnastics and to entertain. With the money Hari devi buys cotton which is used by the seniors to produce  wicks for the many used oil lamps

used in the Nepalese culture. The wicks will be sold and the profit will be used to serve tea and pastries to senior citizens at their meeting.
In this unselfish and especially charitable use of our micro-loan, I spontaneously renounced the repayments.

December 2015

The first women are given their loan in December 2015 by Lalita Maharjan.

Overjoyed women after the presentation of the loans

Oktober 2015

The mother groups ('amaa samuha') in Kirtipur do have the best overview about the social situation and needs of the families in their tole. After intensive consultations with the boards of groups together with Lalita Maharjan I could identify (see photo)  10 women respectively small groups of 2-3 women on the one hand disadvantaged, on the other hand to bring the best conditions for running the the projects successful.

In October 2015 the women have presented their individual plans for their small businesses for livelihood. In each case at least 2 women have joined to a team.  Therefore we have the chance that minimum 2 families will benefit from the credits if used successfully.

In case of a permanent success of the project and after getting more experiences about trusted yearly payback of the credits Nepalhilfe Kirtipur e.V. will consider the extension of the program and the number of credits provided to the women of Kirtipur.

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Concept 'Help for women'