Education Support Program

INTRODUCTION

In Nepal where majority of live below poverty line, children’s education are given less priority especially in rural area. Political instability poverty, ignorance,underdevelopment,corruption, mass illeteracy has impacted fundamental rights of children to pursue quality education freely in enabling environment .Furthremore still Nepal has substantial  degree of child and young popultaion are either forced to child labour, child marriage and or migrated to urban areas reside in the street .According to government report with 2.6 million engaged in child labour in informal labour sector to support livelihood of own and families .

Various other social problems such as child marriage, girl trafficking, bonded labour system, discrimination against girl child, etc. leads towards the undermining of children’s right to education. Similarly ineffective educational policy, lack of strategic planning and investment in child education sector, absence of proper applicable and alternative education system and high rate of unemployment among people all contribute towards the low rate of school enrollment and retention in education. Children of migrant families, migrated child labours, street children, children from slum and squatter settlements, orphaned, abandoned and destitute children, who are an integral part of Nepal, are amongst the most deprived group towards an access to education.

In this scenario, Social Organization for Poverty Alleviation Nepal(SOPAN) has been trying to ensure the education rights of the most deprived children from the risk areas like child workers, conflict affected children and other underprivileged children, displaced ,orphan and street children. Under the SOPAN Education Support and Teaching Fellowship Program . SOPAN has aim to provide education support to around 100 children annually and support library  establishment and provide wash facilities where needed and family support for income generation.

OBJECTIVES

General Objective

The general objective of this program is to be committed to the cause of establishing the right to education for  jeopradized children and living under difficult circumstances

Specific Objectives

1. Provide educational support through scholarships and educational materials to children in need
2. Encourage the communities and concerned sectors to create a enabling environment for the children to grow up with families
3. Carry out advocacy and awareness campaigns and provide advice, suggestions and pressures to the concerned authorities for the formulation and implementation of proper plans of action in the field of children’s education in Nepal.

FOCUS GROUPS

The followings are the target groups of the Education Support Program of SOPAN:

1. School-age children working in risky and dangerous circumstances
2. Children living with disabilities
3. Children of low income families in slums and squatters.
4. Abandoned and Orphans children
5. Rural poor children

APPROACH

Creating Local Awareness

SOPAN through the education support program intends to create local awareness among communities espcially families regarding theOne of the major approaches of  is to aware the parents of the children regarding the importance of education in the human life and their role to provide quality education to the children. Through this approach SOPAN encourages for the role and contribution of guardians/parents for the children’s education. In this way SOPAN and Parents jointly intends to ensure to quality education for children .Also parents are motivated to marry their children after reaching age of marriage as defined by law .

Approaching Local Fund

Local fund mobilization is another approach of the SOPAN Education Support Program. Under this approach, SOPAN creates awareness on the social responsibility of the people and institutions to provide support to the underprivileged children especially for their right to education. There are number of cases that children have been studying with the support of schools being realized with the background and situation of the children. Further more, SOPAN has established a Basket Fund Initiative to collect the contributions from the well off families/ people so that the resources may reach to the needy ones through the SOPAN program.

Approaching for International Fundraising

Through this approach organization intends to collect the financial support for children at risk to pursue education .The fund collected through this approach will be utilize to support educational materials for supported children and provide education suppprt to needy children

MAJOR ACTIVITIES

1. Organisse awareness and advocacy campaigns on educational rights of underprivileged children and children at risk.
2. Educational Support for schools integration: School integration is one of the major activities of SOPAN
3. SOPAN Educational Support Program. Under this program SOPAN provides educational support in two categories. The first category is partial support which provides support only for the school enrollment and educational materials to the children. The second category of full scholarship/ sponsorship support to the children provides full sponsorship/scholarship to children at risk who have no parental support and need full fledged support such as residential support, school enrollment, educational materials and other emergency support such as medical support.
4. In whole process of the program, local recourses are mobilized. In this regards the participation of schools and guardians is sought. SOPAN has introduced the basket fund program to mobilize the local resources to ensure the education of the children at risk.

SELECTION PROCESS

1. Though all the children from the above mentioned focus groups are eligible to get educational support from SOPAN, the number depends solely on the availability of resources.
2. For the selection of children, organization has set a selection criteria and process so that most needy children may get the priority and opportunity.
3. Accordingly in the targeted communities, the selection team of representatives, local municipalities and child clubs and youth clubs make recommendations of the children.
4. Collecting all the names of the children, the program team finalizes the name list after verifying and studying of the cases.
5. The verification and prioritization of the names of the children is carried out with the help of the local Municipalities and Community Groups and Youth/Women Groups and School Management Team.

FUND

Fund for the education support comes from various fundraising initiatives from ‘Friends of SOPAN’ groups and donations from groups and individuals from national and globally

YOU CAN BE A PART OF IT

1. Your small grant can ensure a bright future of a child.
2. Cost for First Category (School enrollment and educational materials): NRs. 5000 (US$ 70) per child per year
3. Cost for Second Category (Full Sponsorship/Scholarship including residential care): NRs. 6000 (US$ 650) per year ,per child (NRs 5000 per child per month)
4. You can contribute through cash, travel check and through bank transfer.

You can contribute through cash, travel check and through bank transfer.