Empowering Women through the Lydia Project

Girls and women in Nepal are often viewed and treated as second class citizens. Whilst this attitude is changing in urban centres, in many rural communities, these views still persist. Many families view educating women as unnecessary and are therefore unwilling to spend money on formal education for their daughters.

Often women are instead expected to begin work as agricultural labourers or marry and begin a family at a young age. As a result, many Nepali women have only basic levels of education; only 63.3% of the adult female population is literate (Worldbank, 2021) [1].

The Lydia Programme

In 1997, International Needs Nepal set up the Lydia Vocational Training Centre in Kathmandu for young women to receive vocational training. Women are identified for the Lydia programme by a network of 40 International Needs community workers based all around the country. Many of the women who are in most need come from communities in very rural regions of the country.

The five-month training course is run twice per year and the centre currently takes on 22 women for each course (44 women per year). The course focuses on empowering women with education and supporting them to develop vocational skills, enabling them to set up their own businesses and support themselves and their families once they graduate. Since its inception, over 800 women have graduated from the Lydia Vocational Training course.

During their five-month course, the women receive training to become professional seamstresses, as well as education in literacy, music, health, nutrition, public speaking and a variety of other classes. They are also provided with tailoring equipment including a sewing machine, and other resources to enable them to start their own small scale businesses.

On graduating, the change in the women is stark. They have a new-found sense of confidence, optimism and can return to their villages and be change-makers.

One of the graduates receiving an award for having good discipline on the tailoring course

Empowering Women

The prevalence of belief systems that are harmful to women have proven to be a challenge for International Needs Nepal. For example, a National Library of Medicine survey revealed that most adolescent girls (84%) practised Chhaupadi when menstruating in a particular Western district of Nepal – something that has several impacts to the health of adolescent girls.

Skill training in Surkeht

In Chhaupadi practice, women and girls are isolated from a range of daily household chores, social events and forbidden from touching other people and objects. Chhaupadi tradition banishes women and girls into menstruation huts’, or Chhau huts or livestock sheds to live and sleep, resulting in poor menstrual hygiene and poor physical and mental health outcomes (ncbi, 2021) [2].

The importance of the Lydia programme is clear – the need is there and the impact on individuals is evident in the stories we receive.

Saurya now has hope

“I got married at the age of 17,” says Saurya*, who lives with her husband and three children.

Saurya’s husband used to be an alcoholic. “He used to spend all the money that we had drinking alcohol.” Then, while he was visiting family in Kathmandu, he was involved in a theft. Because of this, he was put in prison for three years.

“My family was already in hardship,” Saurya explains. Eventually, she had to sell their land to release her husband from prison. “After he was released, we started a small tea shop.”

Saurya

But this wasn’t the normal she was hoping for. “My husband got back to his old habit of drinking and was put into prison for a second time.” Again, Saurya sold land to rescue him from prison. “But there was no change in his behaviour,” Saurya recalls. “Our family never had peace.”

Saurya then joined our Lydia training programme, her aim being to start a tailoring business so that she can provide for her family. “I love everything at the Lydia Training Centre,” says Saurya. “Though I miss my family, I am determined to complete my training so that when I go back, I go back as a confident person.” Eventually, she aims to teach others tailoring and sewing in her village too.

Saurya’s husband has stopped drinking alcohol and is supportive of her. There is now peace in the family and Saurya is able to feel hopeful for the future.

*Name changed to protect identity

References:
[1] genderdata.worldbank.org, 2021
[2] National Library of Medicine, article published online 2021 Sep 1. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0256968