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Mountain Madness
Panchkhapan 6 Sakhuwasabha

Changing Lives in Nepal: An Update from the Safe House

We have hope for con­tin­ued suc­cess as project moves into its third year — read below to see how far its gone and what the future holds

Moun­tain Mad­ness is thrilled to con­tin­ue sup­port­ing Sam­rid­hi Ghar, a Wom­en’s Safe House in the Makalu region of Nepal that pro­vides women and chil­dren with safe­ty, shel­ter, and so much more. We are pleased to be in part­ner­ship with Chang­ing Lives Nepal (CLN), who is lead­ing the project and over­see­ing local oper­a­tions and All the Sky Foun­da­tion, who is gen­er­ous­ly match­ing all dona­tions up to $15,00. We want to share some updates from their third year of suc­cess­ful operations.

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The Safe House has pri­mar­i­ly receives women who are vic­tims of domes­tic abuse, rape, or oth­er sex­u­al vio­lence and often arrive injured, some­times with a child who is mal­nour­ished or sick. They have also seen cas­es of women who have been phys­i­cal­ly attacked or who have severe men­tal dis­tur­bances. For all of them, Sam­rid­hi Ghar pro­vides safe space, a coun­selor on-site, and con­nec­tion to med­ical and legal services.

Women stay any­where from 2 – 3 days up to 6 months, allow­ing them to heal and receive the sup­port they need to re-enter their lives. For women with longer stays, Safe House pro­vides light income gen­er­at­ing activ­i­ties (like mak­ing bead­ed neck­laces), so that they have a lit­tle mon­ey when they leave and a trans­porta­tion stipend when nec­es­sary. Since open­ing in May 2022, they have received 17 women who have stayed for a total of 1088 days, which is the equiv­a­lent of 3 years of hous­ing for women and their children.

Parshu Dahal, Safe House, says, ​“The Safe House staffs have been con­duct­ing aware­ness rais­ing pro­grams among local com­mu­ni­ties with a focus on end­ing vio­lence against women. This includes engag­ing with men and boys to bring about behav­ior change and increase under­stand­ing of the ter­ri­ble impact of gen­der-based violence.”

Com­mu­ni­ty edu­ca­tion builds aware­ness about women’s rights – such pro­tec­tions under the law for women suf­fer­ing from domes­tic vio­lence or for young girls being pushed into child mar­riage – and about the avail­abil­i­ty of Sam­rid­dhi Ghar for any woman in need. Near­ly 30 Com­mu­ni­ty Edu­ca­tion ses­sions have reached 1200 peo­ple, and thou­sands more have been reached through radio PSA spots.

Womans Group
School Program Khandbari 8

The Safe House advo­cates for stronger imple­men­ta­tion of exist­ing laws sup­port­ing women’s rights, and is work­ing towards a long-term, sus­tain­able reduc­tion in gen­der-based vio­lence. They hope to improve the sys­tems women rely on to seek jus­tice and to raise aware­ness of Safe House ser­vices. So many women are suf­fer­ing phys­i­cal and sex­u­al vio­lence that still goes unre­port­ed. They are work­ing to edu­cate the broad­er com­mu­ni­ty to help increase com­mu­ni­ty iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and refer­rals of women in need.

SH bed 2
SH office 1

Anoth­er focus of the Safe House this year has been to make oper­a­tional improve­ments, includ­ing train­ing staff to cre­ate a case man­age­ment sys­tem that will track the women for two years after their stay, con­nect them with local sup­port in their home vil­lages, and pro­vide feed­back to devel­op an increas­ing­ly effec­tive program. 

Safe House Man­ag­er, Tulasi Ghimire, pre­sent­ed data to local dis­trict offi­cials about the cas­es they are see­ing, and the offi­cials have been respon­sive. These efforts have expand­ed local fund­ing com­mit­ments (allo­cat­ing annu­al fund­ing from the main town­ships munic­i­pal bud­gets and now also from all of the small­er coun­ties). The Dis­trict gov­ern­ment also donat­ed land for a per­ma­nent build­ing that will ensure the long-term con­tin­u­a­tion and expan­sion of our SH pro­gram. Ear­li­er this year, CLN announced a part­ner­ship with Anoth­er Brick in Nepal (ABIN) for con­struc­tion of a per­ma­nent build­ing. Togeth­er they have been col­lab­o­rat­ing on design and con­struc­tion plans and hope to break ground before the end of the year. 
Khandbari 5 malta
Khandbari 11 School program

Safe House needs your sup­port to con­tin­ue oper­a­tions and con­tin­ue serv­ing women in Nepal in 2024! Click the link below to donate, and All The Sky will match your dona­tion dol­lar for dollar. 

DOU­BLE YOUR IMPACT: All The Sky FOUN­DA­TION will match your dona­tion dol­lar for dol­lar UP TO $15,000 FOR THE YEAR.

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