a. Programme for girls
Inspired by a Chinese proverb, “Give people a fish, and you feed them a day, teach them to fish, and you feed them for a lifetime”, NEST launched an income-generating programme to support students from disadvantaged groups, particularly girls and children with disabilities in 2004 in collaboration with ICFON, the Netherlands.  In the first phase, 20 girls who were studying in Grade 4 received goat. To date more than 90 girls have received goats from NEST.

Girls transfer a new she- kid (baby goat) to other girls after one year. NEST has set up a bank account of girls in a local bank so they can deposit their saving in the bank. The Girls, on the one hand have learnt saving skills and entrepreneurship and on the other hand, this programme has given them a hope for completing school education because many girls are pushed out of the school before they complete lower secondary education since their parents either cannot afford for their education or sometimes they become victims of gender discrimination.

Watch how this programme supported Indira Rai who is now studying in Grade 9 in a local school.

Umesh Raut in his shop

b. Micro-credit for children with disabilities
Children with disabilities usually face discrimination in education and they are often invisible in society. UNESCO’s finding suggests that girls with disabilities suffer double discrimination based on gender and disabilities that pervades the lives of women and girls with disabilities in all areas including employment, income level, health care, marriage and parenting. Underlying double discrimination about women is compounded by negative attitudes towards disability that often cut across cultures and level of development. Disabled women and girls are commonly stereotyped as sick, helpless, childlike, dependent, incompetent and asexual, which greatly limit their options and opportunities for exploiting their full potentials.

In order to change the social stereotype of disabled people and help them identify their full potentials, in partnership with ICFON, the Netherlands, NEST has initiated a micro-credit programme for youths with disabilities. The seed fund has been provided to learn vocational skills or start a new micro business such as beauty parlour, tailoring etc as loan so that they can proudly demonstrate that they can equally productive and are able to live a life with full potential. The instalment which is collected back from the members is redistributed to new members to start micro-business. NEST also provides workshops to increase their confidence and skills in related areas.

Watch the  following video to see how  ICFON/NEST micro credit  support helped Umesh to continue his study.