Community Development: buffalo project

  Development means to enhance the building capacity and human capital of the community in which projects are implemented. It means to involve people in all stages of the project to discuss needs and problems, to find together the means to face them, to analyse the outputs of activities, to modify them in sharing experiences, to assure future sustainibility to the achievements.

This we are doing in our projects on education and health where the community, SMCs and people have been fully involved, by financial point of view too.

The Buffalo Project has been implemented to help the poorest families in the villages. Cooperation & Development Nepal give the amount to buy a buffalo to the SMCs, they choose the family and provide the animal. The beneficiary receive a micro-finance help which has to be reimbursed to the SMC (School Management Commitee) within 16 months, so the cycle go on. Still now more than 21 families has a buffalo.

SMC members received trainings in micro-finance. We decided the project after a community survey in 210 householders (2004) in which emerged:

• 64% of householders had loan from non formal credit institution (money lenders)
• 15% from banks or relatives
• average of loan Nrs. 30.000-
• needs of loan: 39% food integration; 36% children education; 15% seeds and agricultural tools, 12% house building; 12% marriage expenditures; 18% business (People indicate more than an option)
• 26% householders without buffalo-

Micro-finance provided people a capital (buffalo), a source of income (buffalo products) and proteins for children.

This project has been indicated as a sample to European Union by UCODEP in 2006.