Stewards

Throughout the Himalaya and Asia, girls are often not provided quality (or equal) educational opportunities.  In Nepal, 50% of women older than 15 have no formal eduction. The Stewards program alters that paradigm by offering girls and boys experiential opportunities to learn together the importance of endangered species and environmental conservation.  Taught by local and world experts over multi-day field excursions, the girls not only learn; they become empowered, broaden horizons, and embrace global citizenship in ways never offered to them before.  Learning to become stewards of their world; they are also given insight into future, long term, and sustainable livelihood opportunities in science, eco-tourism, etc.  This is a completely scalable solution that could be carried around the globe to all areas where girls are short changed in education and opportunity.  The results include reduction of gender bias, greater cross generational interaction, livelihood development, and access to greater educational opportunity.

When girls are not granted equal and open educational opportunities along side their male peers, not only do the individual girls (and resulting women) suffer tremendously; the entire community system of which they are a part experiences increases in domestic violence, gender bias, and more - along with a decrease in health, sanitary levels, leadership, and economic development and opportunity. By denying one girl an education, we as a world deprive communities of prosperity, safety, and empowerment.  The local communities are lessened and the global community is damaged.  As the saying goes, "Educate a man and you educate one person, educate a woman and you educate a nation". As one article in the Guardian recently stated, [education of girls] "is a magic multiplier in the development equation." 

The Stewards program addresses the problem with simple, yet innovative community based solutions that foster not only education, but overall stewardship of environment, economy, cultural heritage, and global citizenship; all of which lead to greater gender equal empowerment and opportunity.  Girls and boys learn conservation and science side by side while being taught by leading experts and biologists.  Stewards takes local school kids from small mountain villages in the Himalaya into the wilderness, where they learn the importance of endangered species conservation, biodiversity, eco-system science, and more.  Nowhere else in the Himalayan region of Asia are educational opportunities like this offered.  Camera trap grid monitoring, DNA sampling, transect studies of plants and prey species are all technologies involved.  GPS units, laptops, and drones will be utilized during the programs.

Our target population are communities in the disenfranchised high mountain villages of the Himalaya.  Specifically, for now, in the country of Nepal; ranked as the 28th poorest country in the world. By helping girls/women of these communities, we aim to help the entire region in which they are a part; a region of the world that holds and protects fresh water for over 21% of the world population.  Hence our focus on environmental stewardship based education.  All courses are taught by world experts in education and conservation, and they all are Nepali citizens who have personally grown up in the regions in which we are working.  By the people, for the people.  Our leaders have connection, partnership, understanding, and insight into the very communities we are striving to help.  The Stewards program addresses local needs by not only offering education, but also assistance and insight into long term livelihood solutions.

By offering unique educational programs to disenfranchised girls in the poorest areas of one of the world’s poorest countries, we are directly confronting the documented problems that arise in communities when girls do not have access to education.   This, in turn immediately and directly aligns the problem, solution, and our solutions’s target population with the Challenge [Learning for Girls and Women - How can marginalized girls and young women access quality learning opportunities to succeed], as well as the specific dimension; [increase the number girls and young women participating in formal and informal learning and training.]

No other experiential, in-field, education opportunities like Stewards exists in the Himalayas.  No similar projects exist that offer unique, important, equal education to girls.  Furthermore, Stewards is truly community based, with unmatched leadership and management from global experts in the fields of biology, conservation, and education - while still retaining authentic homegrown insight into and connection with the communities.

Human contact and conversation. 

Backed up by tech such as drones, gps, dna testing, etc.

The Stewards program offers education opportunities to girls.  On one level, It's that simple.  Short term, girls receive educational opportunities they otherwise wouldn't have.  Longer term results are far reaching and varied.  The girls learn side by side with boys enabling more gender equality and peer respect.  As well, the students interact with mentors and community elders during the educational programs, creating an atmosphere of increased multi-generational interaction, and broader respect for cultural heritage. Additionally, as the students are exposed to math, science, biology, history and more they learn the importance of protecting their own back yard.  By protecting the natural world around them, they protect future livelihoods in eco-tourism, etc.  If Nepal's natural world becomes tainted, tourists will stop coming, and that sector of the economy will vanish.  Currently, tourism makes up just under 10% of Nepal's GDP, pumping almost $2 billion USD into the economy each year and directly employing close to 1.4 million people in the country.  Finally, through education, the girls gain a broader world view as well as gain increased confidence, self respect, and pride.  We have witnessed all benefits over the course of our programs, and have verified such information via exit interviews with the students immediately after the courses and with one year post course follow up interviews.

Currently our program directly affects approximately 800 people per year.  In one year we hope to double that number and in five years would like to serve over 2,500 people.

Our central goal is to continue and expand the Stewards program.  Continue in the communities we are currently operating in, and then over the next year expand to at least two other communities.  Five years from now, we would like to quadruple our current programs into many communities throughout Nepal and beyond.

The main barrier is funding.  As a Non-Profit, we are constantly trying to raise funds to keep our programs going.  With enough funding, we have everything in place to not only continue, but grow and expand.

Fundraising, marketing, awareness campaigns.

We have one full time Director, and 5 part time staff members.  When undertaking the Stewards experiential camps, we then include several contractors and additional part time staff members; totaling approximately 15 team members in all.

Dr. Som Ale is the Director of our programs.  Dr. Ale is a professor of ecology and recognized as one of the world leaders in endangered species conservation.  Born and raised in Nepal, now living in Chicago, Dr. Ale is a skilled teacher, an excellent mentor, and not only knows the communities in which we operate, but understands the cultural nuances of dealing in developing world scenarios of the Himalaya.  This allows us excellent access to communities, and ability to expertly and insightfully design curriculum for the kids that not only help educate, but also inspire future livelihood opportunities.  In addition to Dr. Ale, we have other education and science experts on our team, many of whom have worked under Dr. Ale for almost two decades.

We partner with The National Trust for Nature Conservation (NTNC).  NTNC is the gatekeeper of environmental issues and education in Nepal.  Our Director of Programs, Dr. Som Ale, spent over a decade serving as a local manager for NTNC in north central Nepal, and has excellent relationships with the organization.  We collaborate on design and implementation of programs with NTNC, and many NTNC staff members directly participate as staff members within our programs.

As a 501(c)3 Charitable Non-Profit, we rely on donations and grants for our operations.

Financial resources (funding) is the single greatest barrier that Solve can help us with at this time.  Funding allows us to continue our programs, which in turn help realize a true solution.  However other facets of working with Solve are quite attractive, such as ability and access to collaborate with MIT faculty and other Solve members and partner organizations.