Founded in 2015
Our Programmes:
Empowerment and Livelihood for Adolescents
Health and Sanitation
Agriculture, Food Security and Livelihood
Skills Development
BRAC’s work started in Nepal with emergency relief after the massive earthquake of 2015. Later, we signed a general agreement with Nepal’s Social Welfare Council in September 2015, to work on an integrated community development project. Through this project, we aim to strengthen healthcare services by capacitating women community health volunteers and empowering adolescent girls. We also provide life-skills and livelihoods training, improve sanitation and raise awareness against open defecation in the rural areas. We work towards improving the livelihoods of women farmers through livestock rearing in Kavre district, and arrange skills development through apprenticeship of the youth in Kathmandu’s informal settlements.
Although the legal age of marriage in Nepal is 20, it has one of the highest rates of child, early and forced marriages in the world. In 2014, 37 per cent of young women aged 20-24 were married before the age of 18, and 25 per cent of girls aged 15-19 were already married. BRAC Nepal is socially and economically empowering young girls through adolescent clubs by providing them life skills and vocational training, so that they can play an active part in collectively campaigning against child marriage in their community.
According to a report by International Labour Organization in 2014, 19 per cent of Nepal’s youth were unemployed. Many choose to migrate abroad for employment opportunities, but with little to no skills. BRAC provides hands-on skills development trainings to the underprivileged youths of Kathmandu through apprenticeship in different informal trades. This provides them with a platform to access livelihood opportunities, opening pathways for domestic and foreign employment.