It is at the Global Peace Convention in Korea (November 28-30, 2011) that I finally had the chance to meet Saroj Kumal Khanal, the Executive Director of Service For Peace in Nepal. In previous encounters, I had only heard about the initiatives that he was running through third party persons and mostly on the Global Team calls that Service For Peace and Global Peace Connect team members participate in on a weekly basis.  

Now at the Convention I had the opportunity to not only meet him but to also hear about the projects and initiatives in Nepal from the horse’s mouth as Saroj shared a presentation on the initiatives they were running. As Saroj speaks, he does it with such humility but also with so much passion and you can see the zeal, the determination and the commitment to the success of these initiatives. And as I listened, I could not help but think what a great model of community driven development this was. Saroj was able to share with us four great examples of initiatives that I would like to highlight in this article.

First, was on a literacy program focused on women in a rural poor community in Nepal that has the women empowering themselves and driving its development. I hope to share in more depth about this initiative that truly stood out for me.

Second, was on a goat scholarship program; students are provided with a goat that has the potential to be impregnated and the first two kids that are birthed are invested back to the project and those birthed thereafter remain in the custody of the student and their family.

Third, was a potato farming project that involves the larger community with the intention to increase productivity levels.  The community itself provides the land and the organization provides seed money to undertake the farming.

Fourth, is an initiative towards sustaining the initiatives and increasing their scale-ability by initiating a fundraising effort called ‘the power of one rupee’ that also invites the participation of all community members to give as little as one rupee towards supporting these community initiatives.

It was important to note that among the highlights during one of the session at the Convention on “Empowering citizens in Community Driven Development” emphasized on ensuring that there was ownership of the development within the community, the need to start at a small scale and once successful, begin to scale-up and the role that new innovative strategies can play in scaling up community driven initiatives that were working.

I found Saroj’s initiatives well within this criterion especially in the ownership and in starting at a manageable scale.  In a follow-up article, I hope to highlight in depth one of the initiatives that really stood out for me — the woman to woman literacy program that was changing the lives of poor rural women in Nepal and had experienced growth through their very own efforts.

By Becky Gitonga