Child and Youth Protection and Development (CYPD)

IRC’s CYPD program helps conflict-affected children across Nepal, from the mid-west region, which was a hotbed of violence during the former civil war, to the eastern region, which is the center of current tensions. Funded principally by the Danish Embassy (Nepal) and UNICEF, IRC builds the capacity of communities, local government and NGOs to protect child rights and improve education and economic opportunities for conflict affected children.

Activities include:

• Helping former child soldiers and vulnerable children return to school, access non-formal education and integrate into local income generation groups
• Working with local government agencies to train former child soldiers in vocational skills, basic literacy and business development
• Training government teachers on “Healing Classrooms,” a methodology that helps teachers address needs of children in post-conflict settings
• Providing materials to schools that host conflict-affected children
• Acting as a lead agency in a national working group headed by UNICEF (Conflict Affected and Associate Children, or CAAC, Working Group)

Protection and Governance

Recognizing that poor governance and disregard for rights were main causes of the war, IRC’s Protection and Governance Program promotes good governance and rights in conflict-affected communities throughout Nepal. Funded by the United States Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, the program works on three main fronts: increasing local government’s support of the recovery process, equipping communities with tools to earn a living, and helping communities mitigate, prepare for and respond to future conflict or natural disaster.

Activities include:

• Training local community groups on human rights and conflict transformation; capacitating them to become viable civil society organizations that advance participatory peace building and development in their communities and advocate on behalf of vulnerable groups
• Supporting local government to conduct community information campaigns on entitlements and rights
• Supporting local government to provide services to their citizens (issuing ID cards to Internally Displaced Peoples, issuing death/birth/marriage certificates)
• Monitoring and reporting on human rights 
• Providing vulnerable households with livelihoods support and training
• Supporting community groups to implement economic infrastructure projects, such as off-season vegetable farming, animal husbandry, food processing, etc.
• Training local governments on strategies to reduce humanitarian risk

Health

Funded by the European Commission Humanitarian Aid department, IRC’s health program aims to increase quality of and access to health care in Nepal’s mountainous Jajarkot District, one of the most remote and underserved areas of the country. The program delivers short-term improvements in healthcare while helping communities be able to sustain and build on those improvements in the future. It works closely with the District Health Office and the Interdependent Society, a local NGO partner. 

Activities include:

• Physically restoring and making improvements to government-run rural clinics (sub-health posts) to bring them up to a functional standard
• Supplying drugs and medical equipment to sub-health posts
• Delivering stretchers to each small community in the program’s working area 
• Providing health education to village women’s groups while improving the skills of Female Community Health Volunteers (FCHVs) to lead health education sessions
• Conducting community-level outreach and mobile clinics with FCHVs and health staff, giving on-the-job training in treatment of pneumonia and diarrhea to FCHVs
• Conducting community-level reproductive health clinics and providing treatment (including surgery) for women suffering from uterine prolapse