Few weeks into the project, Nima Sherpa, our Project Coordinator, shares her thoughts and impressions on the Student Collaboration Project so far.
PaxWorks is partnering with Helambu Project and other organizations in order to empower educators, women and children through a Student Collaboration Project (SCP). The SCP focuses on developing girl’s aged 11-16 leadership and planning skills.
The Student Collaboration Project helps encourage and provide opportunities to girls to develop their leadership skills and implement projects with their peers. Through the SCP, Helambu Project and PaxWorks provide small grants to students who identify what the school or classroom needs most. Then the students decide through consensus which project to implement and report on the process.
In the context of Nepal, people are not used to planning before doing any projects. The SCP helps students to think and realize how important planning is and how it increases their chances of success. Students will have the chance to discover and understand their strengths and weaknesses during the project, helping them with their future projects. SCP provides a golden opportunity to rural students to learn and experience new things that they haven’t thought of or done before.
As part of the project, only girls are allowed to lead the discussions and plan the projects. The girl leaders are happy to be the part of the SCP and very thankful to be given a chance to develop their leadership skills. At first, they were surprised that they were actually going to implement a project. For the girl leaders it was the first time they worked on a project as a leader. The leaders were excited and happy to decide which project to implement with their friends and peers. The girl leaders said that their family and teachers encouraged them to implement the project. Their families think that for this generation going to the school is not enough and students should have the opportunity to learn and experience different things that aren’t taught in school.
It has been an honor working on the project and with the girls. I am happy for the students, especially for the girls, because they have a chance to experience being a leader. It has been fun to work with the girls because they are friendly and are very curious to learn. They have a lot of excitement and a positive attitude towards their work, which in turn has given me the positive energy to work on the project.
Nima Sherpa
Student Collaboration Project Coordinator
You can see and download the original of first group of girls’ report below.
