The month of November, was quite an eventful month for ICA Nepal, as we managed to conduct various activities and also welcomed Ms. Miku Kawakami from ICA Japan. We also prepared for participation in the 2016 ICA Asia Pacific Regional Meeting to take place from the 4th of December at ICA India, Talegaon, Pune.
Continuing with the elderly care program: one of the elderly programs was conducted at Changunarayan, where 26 elderly citizens participated. They were engaged with various stories shared by facilitators Mr. Aatmaram Timsina and Ms. Sangita Sharma.
Another major program in November, was the training of Promotion, Brand and Marketing, for a local women’s group in Changunarayan, for the marketing of their low cost sanitary napkins. A group of women had been trained on the production of low cost sanitary napkins, for their income generation, in August, 2016. Therefore to make that business a success, another group was provided with training on marketing, so that their product can reach many diverse places and they can get a good income from it. The training provided by, Mr. Ram Raja Pratap Bhandari, focused mainly on providing knowledge on marketing and providing insight on how business works.
The training took 5 days, where 3 day participants were provided theoretical knowledge, and 2 day participants went in the field to conduct market research on sanitary napkins. The research showed that many women still use pieces of cloth during menstruation and there are very few options available to them to obtain sanitary napkins. Therefore, the promotion of menstrual hygiene and sanitary napkins is highly important.
We welcomed Ms. Miku Kawakami, on the 21st of November, 2016, who is responsible for the financial part of the project being supported by ICA Japan. Meanwhile, she also visited Changunarayan, our project area, and Sindhupalchowk, our future prospective area, during her stay.
Team ICA Nepal, is all geared up to attend the APRM meeting in India, and a very young and dynamic team will be representing us this time.
This post was written for ICAI’s monthly bulletin the Global Buzz, December 2016.