MANASVI

Mahila Arthik Nagarik Samajik Vikas Initiative (Women’s Economic, Civic and Social Progress Initiative) acronymized as MANASVI, is an initiative from the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CEI) that recognizes the multidimensional problems faced by members of historically disenfranchised communities who continue to face obstacles as well as discrimination to this day. MANASVI which also happens to mean “intelligent” in the Nepali language aims to provide resources, recourse, and redressal from the socio-economic effects of COVID-19 as well as the historical marginalization of women, daily-wage workers, refugees and other historically oppressed groups by strengthening digital resources in order to enable economic empowerment, and foster digital literacy. Innovative and relevant courses to provide digital literacy and empowerment have been designed to address the listed socio-economic problems.

A study carried out by the UNDP states that “the COVID-19 pandemic is reinforcing inequalities faced by members of marginalized groups, women and the urban poor, effectively reinforcing inequalities faced by these groups further perpetuating their marginalization” (UNDP, 2020). The study explains that three in five employees working in micro and small businesses lost their jobs in Nepal due to the subsequent lockdowns. The combination of loss of revenue with unemployment of the most vulnerable populations who are engaged in those businesses has led to a historic inequality gap and poverty creating a socio-economic crisis in Nepal. 

In the past year, the significance of shifting to a flexible digital workforce model has illustrated the need for the vulnerable populations—most particularly women and displaced populations—to learn digital literacy, adapt to e-commerce, and participate in the digital economy. However, the existing model is largely inaccessible to these individuals. In order to bridge this gap, we aim to focus on equipping the most vulnerable with relevant digital skills to provide an opportunity for productive life, and skills required to adapt to future challenges similar to COVID-19.

Our solution, the Livelihood Enhancement Program (LEP), aims to address the exacerbated marginalization and socio-economic fallout created by the pandemic. The LEP is a holistic digital solution aimed for vulnerable individuals communities living in urban areas of the country that leverages growing digital access in order to create income-generating opportunities. The LEP focuses on providing digital skills as well as e-commerce skills to our target audience in order to democratize digital access and enter the digital economy. The LEP program consists of mentorship and online classes through which we train and facilitate members of marginalized communities—including but not limited to women and refugees—to acquire digital equity. 

The LEP incorporates a combination of classes and workshops on capacity building, basic digital literacy, online marketplace, social media, and e-commerce tools. Our intervention supports the beneficiaries to explore the digital economy with the goal of creating income generating opportunities and be a part of the digital revolution. The LEP solution can be operationalized both in-person and remotely, based on needs and the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. The LEP also provides help in setting up small scale businesses in the form of aiding with online marketing and sales through innovative uses of existing platforms.

Our audience entails people belonging to historically marginalized groups; women, Dalits, daily-wage workers, refugees, and indigenous people residing in Kathmandu, Lalitpur, Bhaktapur, Dhangadi, Birgunj, and Dharan. The 1854 legal document entitled “Muluki Ain” codified an already existing Hindu caste system, essentially legalizing discrimination against existing marginalized groups of people into sub-categories such as “enslavable” and “untouchable” (Bennet, 2008).

Though Muluki Ain was repealed in 1962 (UNDP, 2018), there has been ongoing historic injustice and discrimination against marginalized communities. 51% of Dalits in Nepal are women. Furthermore, Nepal’s patriarchal society has historically deprived women of basic rights such as education, self-determination and often not allowed them to pursue a career or income-generating activities (CARE, 2020). With intersectionality at play, women who belong to marginalized communities find themselves doubly marginalized, for their gender/sex and “castes.”

Rohingya refugees from Burma numbering about 300 presently live in the Kathmandu valley (The Kathmandu Post, 2020). Apart from the Rohingyas, Nepal has also been a haven for Bhutanese and Tibetan refugees fleeing persecution in their homelands in the past (UNHCR, 2001). We seek to include refugees into our program as well since they face marginalization caused due to discrimination, poverty, and statelessness. We intend to serve these groups of people by directly engaging with them in pursuit of our activities that have been designed and specifically catered in an effort to provide holistic training in the fields of e-commerce and digital literacy.

Through previous work focusing on providing COVID-19 related aid and provisions to these communities, we have directly reached out to said communities and heard from them their needs and complaints. In 2020 we worked with a small group of Rohingyas who had found refuge in the Kathmandu valley, to whom we provided aid through supplying basic amenities. We have continued our correspondence with people belonging to marginalized communities and continue to update our project in order to better cater to their needs. 

Our focus is largely on urban areas as studies have shown urban poverty rising whilst rural poverty declining across Nepal (ADB, 2013; UNDP, 2014). Our program will work with 7600 individuals belonging to said communities with a focus on 90% youths, 80% disadvantaged groups, and 85% women. We will conduct our work with people falling within the working-age of 18-65. Our solution impacts the lives of our target audience and group by creating holistic civic, economic, and social-recourse programs designed to address the impacts that COVID-19 has had on the most vulnerable members of society.

Marginalized communities have long lacked access to basic skills and income generating opportunities in Nepal as a result of historic discrimination. The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic has further increased their marginalization and reduced gains that have been made since the start of the democratization process in Nepal. With this, digital skills have become essential in order to access income generating opportunities and tackle unprecedented crises. The solutions to the problems facing these groups are tied with the challenge as we seek to provide recourse through digitized means to the most vulnerable members of society.

We have selected the prototype stage as we are on track to rolling out our services in August 2021. Having conducted the initial stage of planning and blueprinting we are currently in the process of acquiring funds for our project. We have worked on a prototype of our project in Constituency Number 4 with support from a Member of the Parliament. During the course of the program we were able to train female entrepreneurs affected by the socio-economic repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic basic digital literacy as well as e-commerce. 

There are myriad of opportunities, initiatives, and programs within Nepal that aim to provide economic development and entrepreneurial skills to marginalized populations in Nepali society. In the past year, micro and small businesses however took the biggest hit during the COVID-19 pandemic as relief efforts shifted focus towards tackling the medical crises creating a gap in recovery efforts for employment generation. Furthermore, as many existing livelihood programs in Nepal largely limit their activities to capacity building and operate solely in the physical marketplace, during the pandemic vulnerable individuals and communities were unable to leverage the digital marketplace for economic survival. 

Our solution is innovative as it aims to integrate digital equity to entrepreneurship development in Nepal. We aim to train our beneficiaries to utilize digital tools, increasing technological access and shifting the primary marketplace to e-commerce. By providing a digital solution, we are not only empowering individuals and communities through training, we are also integrating them to a sector that is largely exclusive to rural and urban-poor communities. Our solution does not limit to capacity building and reliance on physical market and client based, we are able to integrate a vital component of a global future that is the digital economy. The intervention will allow the beneficiaries to increase employment and business opportunities for personal empowerment and financial wellbeing.

Our solution serves people through the LEP activity which has been operational through a prototype testing. We currently serve 150 people through our project prototype which was conducted at Constituency Number 4 and at the end of one year our solution which consists of the earlier mentioned  activities that include the LEP will serve upwards of 7600 citizens. In the next five years with expansion across the global south, reaching out to communities in need we expect to serve more numbers of people directly through our programs, and to further reach a further audience through infographics and informative mediums.

In order to validate our project as well as to gain meaningful insight in order to further update our project we have come up with methods of a comprehensive monitoring and evaluation program designed to measure our progress. We are measuring progress towards our impact goals through holding reporting sessions and evaluations on every 3rd, 6th, 9th and 12th months of our programs. These reporting sessions will be important for our monitoring and evaluation plan, whereby we measure key factors of our programs such:

1. Number of participants
2. Number of participating women
3. Number of calls received
4. Increase in income generation
5. Number of participants graduating from the course.

Through the assessment of the factors listed above which will be calculated through, attendee lists, Pre-Post assessment survey and hotline call records we will be able to measure progress in regards to our impact goals.

Our team consists of 6 full-time staff, 3 part-time staff, 3 interns, and 32 volunteers. 

Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CEI), founded in 2019, is a non-profit organization dedicated to societal and development issues through entrepreneurial and social innovation. In response to COVID, we have trained over 400 youth in workshops on leadership and organizing. We have engaged over 15,000 citizens through our Know Your Rights digital infographic campaign. With partnerships with a federal Member of Parliament and the ex-Health Minister, we organized an anti-dengue campaign that educated and shaped the sanitation habits of more than 4000 citizens in Kathmandu. We have engaged more than 500 people who attended our community town hall meetings on various social issues including anti-deforestation campaigns, women’s participation, democracy, and youth entrepreneurship.

We have also successfully partnered with national and international organizations such as Accountability Lab, FeedbackLabs, National Endowment for Democracy through which we were able to raise just under 100,000 USD, We were also chosen as one of top 50 youth-led projects globally by United Nations SDSN, and were featured in the 2020 Youth Solutions Report.

A digital solution to the Global South’s civic problems were always a matter of interest for our organization. The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic has broadened our outlook as COVID-19 has affected many spheres of life, especially for the most vulnerable members of society and re-shifted our focus to look for holistic solutions to tackle societal, economic and civic issues.

Our team is composed of young graduates with an expertise on entrepreneurship development and civic engagement belonging to diverse backgrounds of ethnic groups from Nepal; working in and with the government activists in various fields; young policy makers and innovative volunteers. Our team building approach has always been to accept the best and brightest minds in their fields coming in from diverse backgrounds with an emphasis on promoting a harmonious work environment for a multicultural work experience. 

Nepal being one of the most diverse nations in Asia, is home to 126 ethnic groups.  We believe in building equity and harmony amongst all peoples of Nepal and have an inclusive team building approach without any bias to any group. Just like MIT, we also consider ourselves an equal employment opportunity employer as we  in the team building process encourage members of communities that have been marginalized such as historically oppressed groups, women and LGBTQ+ to join our team to become an active part of our organization. We pursue no biases against any groups of people regardless of their identity and given the qualification our policy is to hire people regardless of their identity characteristics or beliefs.

Our team’s expertise in entrepreneurship development and civic engagement coupled with rigorous ongoing research on the COVID-19 pandemic and its implications since the start of the pandemic has helped us understand the issues plaguing groups that have historically been discriminated against, marginalized, and on the peripheries of society.

The prospect of becoming a Solver and being able to join MIT Solve 9 month program is the reason behind us applying to Solve. Being able to access and become a part of an impressive cohort of similar minded change-makers from across the globe greatly interests us. MIT Solve would further allow us to expand our knowledge and adapt our process to better adapt and innovate our solutions. With MIT Solve’s impressive mentorship and reach, we would be able to access advice and solutions from experts which would give us a competitive edge in regards to applying our solution on the field. 

The immense experiences and knowledge that is available through becoming a Solver is immeasurable.This with the added benefit of expanding our networking potential with innovative participants from across the world along with mentorship and evaluation from professionals within the field is the reasoning behind us applying to Solve. Our future plans on expanding towards the Global South would also benefit from being a part of MIT Solve as we would gain the necessary skill-sets as well as the media reach and exposure.

As aforementioned, we face barriers in the form of funding and through Solver we hope to expand our operations and network globally. Through a global expansion of our network we hope to find more funding sources and partners as well as technical help and solutions.

We require partners to expand our program and project across Nepal. We have plans to align ourselves with community leaders and elected officials who are interested in facilitating this program for distribution purposes in our target areas.

We would like to partner with organizations as well as MIT faculty. The following are some partners we would be interested to work with:

J-PAL.

We would like to partner up with organizations such as J-PAL in the future. J-PAL’s approach to research and their past partnerships with various governments, NGOs, NPOs  and donors has been highly effective in the global pursuit for bringing about equity, diversity and ending inequalities. We would like to have mentors such as J-PAL for their knowledge and approach to the subject.

Esther Duflo & Abhijeet Banerjee

Professor Esther Duflo and Professor Abhijeet Banerjee with their years of research in poverty alleviation are two MIT Faculty we would appreciate and greatly be honored to work with. Their research and expertise in the field would enable us to take insight from them in our projects against poverty and inequity faced by marginalized groups in Nepal. 

Jeff Dieffenbach

Jeff Dieffenbach, who serves as the Associate Director of MIT Integrated Learning Initiative is another partner we would like to have on board. His work in the field of education and expertise in digital learning as well as workplace learning would be of great help. Our pursuit in helping members of marginalized communities to find sources of income through digital literacy and e-learning mediums would greatly be accelerated from such expertise.

Since our solution is focused on providing equity to marginalized and disenfranchised groups of people including refugees we believe that our organizations' efforts would benefit from the grant. Around 600 Rohingya refugees from Burma have found their way into Nepal (Kathmandu Post, 2020) and since 2020 our organization has been working with them directly in an effort to provide recourse from COVID-19 induced economic and social problems. We were able to successfully set up a hotline in order to connect with the Rohingya people and understand their needs and hence provided basic necessities and essentials such as food, drinking water, medicines, sanitary products, etc. 

Inclusivity in regards to our program has always been a key factor, we have included refugees into our focus group as they often find themselves lacking access and reach due to being stateless. We believe that with the help of the Andan Prize for Innovation in Refugee Inclusion we could further provide solutions as well as it would aid in our ongoing effort to provide digital literacy and e-commerce solutions to the Rohingya refugees amongst other marginalized groups. Through this grant, the Rohingya refugees that have found their way into Nepal can be provided with solutions to employment and income generation, fostering them to live in dignity for themselves and their families.

Women’s job participation in the workplace has seen a decline in all job fronts, while women’s unpaid labor has seen a massive growth of 336% since the start of the pandemic. This is in sharp contrast to women working in all other sectors going in the decline (CARE, 2021). The loss of an income source as a result of COVID-19 has disproportionately impacted women as sectors such as the service industry, daily wage construction, and personal business—which employ majority women—have remained inoperational in the past year (The Asia Foundation, 2021). 

Our solution’s primary beneficiaries include women of marginalized communities, through the grant’s support we would be able to provide them with digital skills that empower them through skill development and financial independence. Through the grant’s support, women can become competitive in the burgeoning informal sector. The financial independence resulting from our solution will build up their confidence in personal and social circles encouraging their participation in the civic and political processes as well. 

The Innovation for Women Prize would enable the organization to serve and connect with a large number of women in urban-poor communities and expand the entrepreneurship development initiative that incorporates a sustainable technological approach. Through the grant, the LEP can continue investing in digital tools and create a self-sustaining platform for women’s empowerment through financial independence. With the scale of impact and outreach that the grant provides, the LEP program can employ a feedback mechanism and system that continues to improve the overall program output.